The Four Lobes of the Cerebral Cortex

The brain, the brain, the center of the chain…

— The Babysitter’s Club

The cerebral cortex is the outside part of the human brain’s cerebrum, with the cerebrum consisting of two hemispheres connected to each other by another structure called the corpus callosum. Each hemisphere’s cerebral cortex is traditionally divided into four main lobes, which loosely manage specific brain functions and specifically all voluntary actions of the body.

Because each side of the cerebral cortex has four lobes, I guess you could say that the cerebral cortex has eight lobes. Interestingly, each hemisphere is a bit functionally different in its operation, so perhaps those eight lobes are indeed distinct: left frontal lobe, right frontal lobe, left parietal lob, etc.

There has been research over the years about the functional differences in the hemispheres. Roger Sperry won a Nobel prize in 1981 for his pioneering work on split-brain research, although some of those findings are now known to be much more nuanced than before. Psychiatrist Iain McGilchrist has written a interesting sounding book on the differences between the two hemispheres, that is high on my to-read list!

Frontal Lobe: attention, planning, deciding, movement
Parietal Lobe: language, taste, touch, temperature
Temporal Lobe: hearing, emotion, smell, memory
Occipital Lobe: sight, vision