The parts for dummies like me:
Forebrain and midbrain: the thing you think of when someone says brain
Hindbrain: the brainstem/bottom part going to spine
this post was submitted on 19 Sep 2026
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Weird, I kind of already considered them separate organs...
If you've ever seen them in a cadaver lab, the brain stem always had slightly different texture and color.
But what about the mouthfeel?
I'm glad someone is thinking about the mouthfeel
Ok but you forgot about the smell you dumb bitch
Not good, mushy and fatty.
Found the zombie.
Well, yes, but in a complete different way than scientists thought.
If they only would've just asked me. 😮💨
Neat, has nothing to do with your two hemispheres if you haven't read the article.
Inside of you there are two brains meme when
One brain gnawing on a bone and jerking off, the other reciting poetry and wondering if the stocks laid in for winter are sufficient
"We are two brains" - Brain.
Amazing what one can learn in the details. TIL that face musculature is controlled by the hindbrain. I always thought they were run like all the other actively controlled muscles.
Maybe that's why reading someone's face is such a good method for determining another's mental state. Even when we try to control it there is something that gives us away.
So is emotion. That’s why marketing and propaganda targets it.
Wow, that was a really fascinating article. I suppose this will also factor in to understanding the differing ability for higher thought between us and other animals.
It's not unique to humans at all. They originally found the two types of brain cells by looking at mouse embryos. Then,
"Finally, the researchers looked back over 550 million years of evolutionary time. They found the same two-origin brain pattern in chickens; zebrafish; and, remarkably, in acorn worms, tiny creatures living on the ocean floor that share a distant common ancestor with humans. Jellyfish, which diverged from humans about 600 to 700 million years ago, have two nervous systems at different ends of their body.
“Our research suggests that evolution took two existing neural systems and pushed them together spatially,” Loh said. “Having the brain as one organ would probably be more efficient, but we rely on this primordial way to make the brain as two separate pieces.”
We've long known the forebrain, midbrain and hindbrain control different things, we just didn't know the hindbrain neuron cells evolved so fundamentally differently. Being able to grow the right kind in a lab will enable research that wasn't possible before.
Maybe it's one for automatic processes and another for manual?
In a way, yes. Breathing is a very interesting case here. Breathing is controlled by both sides, actually. At night, you don't want to have to think about breathing in, breathing out. But for diving and swimming and speaking, you need precise and active control.
So there is a complex mechanism to hand over the control from one side to the other. Sudden infant death syndrome is probably linked to the development of this handover process.
Lizard v Monkey brain as the kids say
I didn't suggest it was unique to humans.
*some other animals
Funny enough, I already guessed what parts of the brain they were talking about.
I always thought it was fun to think of the brainstem as the Id to the midbrain and cortex' Ego and Superego (specially the prefrontal cortex, that's my favorite part of a brain). Freud was pretty coked out of his mind but those terms remain kinda cool to me as a metaphor, lol.
Freud is funny because there is usually a nugget of truth buried under all his bullshit. Like, not everybody wants to fuck their mom like he did but the way your parents raise you will determine how you attach to others.
It's how Seinfeld isn't that funny anymore: what he got right is now so foundational to the whole field that it's basically common sense, so he's only famous for what he got wrong.
I would argue the same with the Beatles and modern music making
Another excellent example
Yeah I think you are right. It can leave those with a contemporary view thinking "What's all the fuss about this?"
And it might even be that these different personality pieces (Id, Ego, Superego) actually have different locations in the (different) brain(s), (which would be pretty awesome - Freud with his limited information actually having glimpsed structural information about our nervous system would be insane), distributed in the way you just mentioned. Many subconscious decisions depend on very basic impulses, the kind of which the brainstem/midbrain is responsible for. This might have repercussions into psychiatry and psychotherapy.
I’m in two minds about this.
They deserve the Nobel prize
Dr. Hfuhruhurr: Get that cat out of here!
Headless chickens are a good example of this. If the chop leaves enough of the brain stem intact, then the now headless chicken can still run around and "live" for some time. Since "running around like a headless chicken" is a saying in several languages, this probably wasn't an ultra rare occurrence.
We all sort of/kind of knew this but we never realized this? That's kinda crazy. Glad it has been formally established.
It’s not too dissimilar to Windows OS. If you’ve gone into the System application of the Control Panel, you can flip the Windows host to optimize for services or applications. And I think they mean the hindbrain, as in the brain stem and medulla oblongata, is one type of neuron, whereas the lobes — occipital, temporal, frontal, etc. — are another type. The former is likely genetically-optimized for fight or flight, reflexes, and such, whereas the latter is for added analysis, deeper reasoning, etc.
Did I read that right? Maybe I muddied some brain structures between these types of neurons? Eh, I’m no neurologist.
In a college course, we discussed the idea of System 1 and System 2. The System 1 (autonomic, unconscious) handles primitive work — fight or flight, organ management, and feelings, but it’s reliable, whereas System 2 requires more conscious effort and it’s linked with consciousness and it can intercede in a decision, if applied. So, now, there is genetic evidence to support this System 1&2 idea. Fascinating.
NOTE: I said Windows had a similar setting; however, unlike us meat suits, we shouldn’t and can’t swap between these.
And I think they mean the hindbrain, as in the brain stem and medulla oblongata, is one type of neuron, whereas the lobes — occipital, temporal, frontal, etc. — are another type.
Hindbrain and the lobes aren't neuron. Neither are they a type of neuron.
They have neurons. Of different types.
I get that. Those are regions of the brain, and they contain neurons.