Lesson 7 of 13 · about 5 minutes

Memory

The hippocampus and its circuit.

In the 3D app, the brain flies to each part as you read, and 2 quick questions at the end help it stick. Here is the whole lesson to read.

1
The hippocampus
Curled inside the temporal lobe, the seahorse-shaped hippocampus turns today's experiences into lasting memories.
More about the hippocampus →
2
Inside the seahorse
Inside it, the dentate gyrus and the CA fields pass each memory along like a relay team, keeping similar memories apart.
More about the dentate gyrus →
3
The doorway
Information comes in through the entorhinal cortex, whose grid cells help map where you are.
More about the entorhinal cortex →
4
The fornix
The fornix arches over the thalamus, carrying memory signals out of the hippocampus.
More about the fornix →
5
The mammillary bodies
The fornix ends at the mammillary bodies, a relay in the memory loop. A lack of vitamin B1, often with heavy drinking, damages them.
More about the mammillary bodies →
6
The loop closes
From there, signals travel through the anterior thalamus and the cingulate cortex back toward the hippocampus. This loop is called the Papez circuit.
More about the anterior nucleus of the thalamus →