YOUR BRAINhormones, sexual urges,
aggression and maintaining
your body’s temperature,
hydration and satiety. Many
scientists are busy trying to
find ways to alter hypotha-
lamus function for various
medical ends, such as to help
obese people lose weight.
Either side of the thalamus
are a group of subcortical
structures, known collectively
as the basal ganglia, which are
involved in emotions and the
control of movement.
Last up on this whistle-stop
tour, but definitely not least, are some important structures that may
not be visible even with the brain sliced in half. Buried in the temporal
lobes is the hippocampus, which plays a vital role in memory. The
name means seahorse in Greek, which is what early anatomists
thought the curvy structure resembled. Also deeply buried are two
almond-shaped structures known as the amygdala, which are involved
in emotional memory, including learned fears. Together with parts of
the cortex and the olfactory bulb (involved in our sense of smell), the
hippocampus and amygdala form what’s known as the limbic system,
which plays a key role in many of our emotions.
Investigating the brain
Our current knowledge of the workings of the brain comes from a
diverse range of sources, including animal experiments, brain imaging
and observation of patients with brain damage or neurological
illnesses. During research with non-human primates, investigators
use electrodes inserted directly into the animal’s brain to record from
single cells as the animal performs a certain behaviour – a procedure
that usually isn’t possible with humans because it is too dangerous and
invasive. To this day, much of what we know about brain cells comes
from these kinds of studies.
hippocampusamygdalabasal ganglia