Lobe · one in each half of the brain

Frontal lobe

Your brain's CEO: planning, deciding, speaking and moving, right behind your forehead.

Open in 3D

The frontal lobe is the largest of the brain's lobes, filling the front of your head from your forehead back to roughly the top of your head. It is where you plan, make decisions, control impulses, speak and start movements. It also shapes much of your personality and how you behave around other people. It is one of the last parts of the brain to fully mature, still fine-tuning its wiring into your twenties.

Where it is

At the front of each half of the brain, behind your forehead and above your eyes. It ends at a deep groove called the central sulcus, near the top of your head, and at a side groove called the lateral sulcus, above your ears.

What it does

Think of it as the brain's command center and CEO: it sets goals, makes plans, keeps impulses in check and gives the order to act.

Inside the frontal lobe

• Prefrontal cortexThe front-most part of your brain, where you plan, focus and keep yourself in check.
• Broca's areaWhere thoughts become speech: the famous language region discovered in 1861.
• Orbitofrontal cortexRight above your eyes: the region that decides what things are worth to you.
• Motor stripA strip across the top of your brain that sends the "go" signal to your muscles.

Works with

• Parietal lobeThe parietal lobe behind it reports where your body and nearby objects are, so plans turn into accurate actions.
• Basal gangliaLoops through the basal ganglia help it pick which action to take and which to hold back.
• Mediodorsal nucleus of the thalamusThis part of the thalamus is a close partner of its front areas, constantly trading signals with them.
• Cingulate cortexThe cingulate cortex helps it notice mistakes and decide how much effort a goal is worth.
• Corticospinal tractThis great bundle of fibers carries movement commands from the frontal lobe down to the spinal cord.
• Arcuate fasciculusThis curved cable links speech areas in the frontal lobe with language areas further back.

When it goes wrong

For learning only, not medical advice. If you have a health concern, talk to a doctor.

Surprising facts

• Estimates vary, but it makes up about a quarter to two fifths of the cerebral cortex, the wrinkly outer layer of the brain.
• It is among the last brain areas to finish maturing, still refining its connections into your twenties. That may help explain why teenagers are often more drawn to risk.
• Phineas Gage, a railroad worker who survived an iron rod through his frontal lobe in 1848, became one of the most famous cases in medicine and helped convince doctors that this region shapes personality.

By the numbers

Where the name comes from

From the Latin "frons", meaning forehead. It is the lobe that sits right behind your forehead.

Learn it in a lesson

• The big pictureCerebrum, cerebellum and brainstem. A short guided lesson in 3D.

Sources

1. Lobes of the brain, Queensland Brain Institute, University of Queensland
2. Frontal Lobe: What It Is, Function, Location & Damage, Cleveland Clinic
3. The Teen Brain: 7 Things to Know, National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH)

Spotted a mistake? Tell us.