Psychologists believe that the purpose of the mind is to aid us in adapting to our environment by making it meaningful. It accomplishes this task by forming a mental representation of our environment that is based upon the contents of our memory. Our memory is organized as a network, in which various sensory experiences or situations are associated with each other and with appropriate responses, these response often involve motor movements. However the target area of psychoactive drugs, their pharmacodynamics, are within the nervous system, so it is this that we must understand, both the brain's anatomy and its physiology. Hippocampus is Latin for seahorse.
Pons is Latin for bridge.
Once a structure was identified, its function, in aiding us to adapt to our environment, had to be ascertained. Electrical stimulation, cells within the brain are stimulated and the effect on behavior is measured. The electrical activity of the brain is measured during a behavior or cognitive processes Scans are employed, especially PET scans that measure metabolic processes during a behavior or mental process. The nervous system consists of the following subdivisions, based upon their function. All tissue within the nervous system that is not within the brain or the spinal cord.