what happens when a thought takes place in the brain?

[pauljohn]

how does the decision to get up out of bed lead us at actually getting up of bed?

[drtom007]

That's a very broad question, but i'll see if i can answer it in a general sense.

Cognitive thought is a global process, arising from a vast network of electrical and chemical signals coming together from many areas of different association areas of the cortex and deeper regions concerning memory, emotion, etc. Neurons communicate through a series of successive electrical signals passing from neuron to neuron, releasing chemical receptors to help determine the response of the next neuron in line (basically by changing the threshold needed for the receiving neuron to fire). Sensory information is processed and associated through specific pathways, put together in the cortical association areas, and stored through different mechanisms to form memories (another broad topic). The interplay between enormous numbers of neurons in specialized areas of the cortex forms the basis of thought and perception. Based on the information you receive from your senses and previous information stored in your memory about what time it is, how you feel, and what your plans are, etc, you can decide that it is time to get up.

Once the decision is made, the cortex will signal a deep area in the brain called the basal ganglia, which is responsible for initiating movement. These pathways in turn signal the necessary areas in the motor cortex that it is time for the necessary muscles to move. The motor cortex will send signals down the spinal column, which are fine tuned by areas in the cerebellum for proper coordination, to the appropriate muscles and cause them to contract or relax. Constant feedback from the sensory systems, your motor memory systems, and the cerebellum ensures that you are performing the correct series of movements and you physically get up.

This is a very basic description of what actually happens as a full explanation would be thousands of pages long, but if you're just learning the basics, i hope it helps.

[barrlowgeorge]

The brain performs following tasks:

 1.It controls body temperature, BP, heart rate and breathing.
2.It accepts 5 various senses like seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting and touching
3.It handles your physical movement and allows you to dream and experience emotions.

However your brain takes some milliseconds to understand that is when you get hurt it takes sometime to realize that which part of you body got hurt.
 

[AlexDail]

In layman terms, the parts of the brain that thought originated from increases in activity and any associated area of the brain as well. Hopefully this example will make it clearer: lets say I'm thinking of hitting a ball. Those areas of the brain that are specific to hitting the kind of ball (like a baseball) I have in mind would become more active, and other areas are likely to become more active that may have other ball striking like if I also strike a tennis ball, softball etc. Lastly memory areas of the environmental conditions may too become more active such as hitting in wet weather, hitting while being jeered and so on.