<p>Building off of <a href="https://cogsci.stackexchange.com/a/6510/4906">Nick Stauner's answer</a>, the lobes are named after the cranial bones that cover them. You can see the overlap by looking at the bones of the skull (image from Wikipedia).</p>

<p><img src="https://i.sstatic.net/HT4IL.png" alt="human skull"></p>

<p>I'm speculating now, but my guess would be that an anatomist simply picked sulci (the "valleys" in the folds of the cortical surface) that were close to the bone boundaries and used those as the demarcating lines of the various lobes. Maybe someone else can verify, or correct me!</p>

CC BY-SA 3.0
2014-05-28T23:39:25.517Z
2014-05-29T16:06:51.313Z
2017-04-13T12:56:16.467Z
Josh
<p>There are anatomical features that make lobe demarcations fairly non-arbitrary. From <a href="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/4/46/LobesCaptsLateral.png/640px-LobesCaptsLateral.png">Wikipedia:
<img src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/4/46/LobesCaptsLateral.png/640px-LobesCaptsLateral.png" alt=""><br>
<sup>by Sebastian023</sup></a></p>

<p>There are some borders here that may be more arbitrary than others:</p>

<ul>
<li>The border between the occipital and parietal lobe between the preoccipital notch and parieto-occipital sulcus</li>
<li>The border between the parietal and temporal lobes between the preoccipital notch and the lateral fissure</li>
<li>The little space between the central sulcus and the lateral fissure that separates the parietal and frontal lobes</li>
</ul>

<p>These lines seem to be anchored on non-arbitrary points, but their flatness (lack of curves/bumps) may be somewhat arbitrary. An analogy would be the southern border of my home state, Minnesota. It's a flat east-to-west line between two rivers that form the eastern and western borders. The rivers aren't arbitrary, but the southern border didn't have to be a straight line. (Why not a sine wave? That surely would've made things more interesting!) If there's more to these borders of the brain than just their anchor points at either end, it's not apparent to me from this image or any other sources I know offhand, but it would be nice to see another answer from anyone who might know better than I.</p>

CC BY-SA 3.0
2014-05-31T13:23:03.433Z
To add to this, the regions on the borders (such as the Temporo-Parietal Junction) are amongst the least well-defined regions.
jona
CC BY-SA 3.0
2014-05-28T18:07:04.550Z
2014-05-28T18:07:04.550Z
Nick Stauner
<p>If I had a brain in front of me, would I be able to find some kind of crevasse or something separately each lobe from the next? I guess what I'm asking is, are lobes more arbitrarily-defined regions of the brain, or is there a definite distinction between them anatomically?  </p>

<neuroscience><frontal-lobes>
Are the lobes of the brain anatomically distinct, or is the distinction between them not as well-defined?
Tim
# Are the lobes of the brain anatomically distinct, or is the distinction between them not as well-defined?

(Asked by: username_0 on 2014-05-28)

If I had a brain in front of me, would I be able to find some kind of crevasse or something separately each lobe from the next? I guess what I'm asking is, are lobes more arbitrarily-defined regions of the brain, or is there a definite distinction between them anatomically?

**Tags:** neuroscience, frontal-lobes


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## 2 answers

### Answer by username_2 on 2014-05-28. Score: 6 | Accepted answer

There are anatomical features that make lobe demarcations fairly non-arbitrary. From [Wikipedia:
![](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/4/46/LobesCaptsLateral.png/640px-LobesCaptsLateral.png)  
by Sebastian023](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/4/46/LobesCaptsLateral.png/640px-LobesCaptsLateral.png)

There are some borders here that may be more arbitrary than others:

* The border between the occipital and parietal lobe between the preoccipital notch and parieto-occipital sulcus
* The border between the parietal and temporal lobes between the preoccipital notch and the lateral fissure
* The little space between the central sulcus and the lateral fissure that separates the parietal and frontal lobes

These lines seem to be anchored on non-arbitrary points, but their flatness (lack of curves/bumps) may be somewhat arbitrary. An analogy would be the southern border of my home state, Minnesota. It's a flat east-to-west line between two rivers that form the eastern and western borders. The rivers aren't arbitrary, but the southern border didn't have to be a straight line. (Why not a sine wave? That surely would've made things more interesting!) If there's more to these borders of the brain than just their anchor points at either end, it's not apparent to me from this image or any other sources I know offhand, but it would be nice to see another answer from anyone who might know better than I.

> **Comments:**
> **username_3**: To add to this, the regions on the borders (such as the Temporo-Parietal Junction) are amongst the least well-defined regions.  

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### Answer by username_1 on 2014-05-28. Score: 4

Building off of [username_2's answer](https://cogsci.stackexchange.com/a/6510/4906), the lobes are named after the cranial bones that cover them. You can see the overlap by looking at the bones of the skull (image from Wikipedia).

![human skull](https://i.sstatic.net/HT4IL.png)

I'm speculating now, but my guess would be that an anatomist simply picked sulci (the "valleys" in the folds of the cortical surface) that were close to the bone boundaries and used those as the demarcating lines of the various lobes. Maybe someone else can verify, or correct me!


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