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Word of the Day: Cerebellum

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Rating: 3.3/5 (20 votes cast)
Comments. 5 Comments

a girl balancing on beamOur word for today is: Cerebellum

Cerebellum: A portion of the brain that helps regulate posture, balance, and coordination during activities such as playing ball, picking up objects, and balancing.

Why do I like this word so much? Say it again: “cer·e·bel·lum” (sĕr’ə-bĕl’əm)—yup, it’s my namesake!

When we walk down the street or concentrate on keeping our balance, our cerebellum is guiding us. The cerebellum coordinates our voluntary muscle movement as well as our posture and balance, like a puppeteer helping us put one leg in front of the other.

Suppose you’re playing ball? Picking up your pet? Playing a musical instrument? Your cerebellum is hard at work inside your head so you can slam dunk that basketball, hold onto the cat, and play each note on your electric guitar perfectly. And these are just a few of the activities that the cerebellum handles for us.

The cerebellum is located just above the brainstem, where our brain connects to our spinal cord. The average teen’s cerebellum weighs about 6 ounces. That’s about one-eighth of the total weight of our brain, which weighs about 3 pounds. Hmm…who knew something so little could be so powerful?

You can look up more words in the NIDA for Teens glossary.

Word of the Day: Cerebellum, 3.3 out of 5 based on 20 ratings

Posted: Thursday, October 29 2009   Author: admin
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Category: Brain Science, Word of the Day

5 Responses to “ Word of the Day: Cerebellum ”

  1. chereey says:

    its true about what u said about drugs

  2. seny101 says:

    wow this is good

  3. hello kitty says:

    Great post! thank for the sharing this with us

  4. jim says:

    what this mean… nice post…
    [link removed]

  5. Ben says:

    Keeping the cerebellum well nurtured will enhance the performance for the lifetime. One of the ways is doing brain exercises which many do not know how.

    Ben [commercial link removed, per guidelines]

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