HAND MODEL OF THE BRAIN

If you put your thumb in the middle of your palm and then curl your fingers over the top, you’ll have a pretty handy model of the brain. (My kids can’t stand that pun, either.) The face of the person is in front of the knuckles, the back of the head toward the back of your hand. Your wrist represents the spinal cord, rising from your backbone, upon which the brain sits. If you lift up your fingers and raise your thumb, you’ll see the inner brainstem represented in your palm. Place your thumb back down and you’ll see the approximate location of the limbic area (ideally we’d have two thumbs, left and right, to make this a symmetric model). Now curl your fingers back over the top, and your cortex is in place.