The hypothalamus is a small, but busiest part of the brain located just below the thalamus and is mainly concerned with homeostasis. It is an important link in the command chain governing bodily maintenance and helps keep the body’s internal environment in a steady state. In addition, the hypothalamus is responsible for regulating your hunger, thirst, response to pain, levels of pleasure, sexual satisfaction, anger, aggressive behavior, and more. The pituitary gland is under the influence of the hypothalamus, which in turn pumps hormones into the bloodstream that are vitally important in regulating growth, metabolism, and controls other endocrine glands.
The hippocampus is situated in the left and right temporal lobes in close proximity to the amygdala and is in charge of processing conscious memories. When animals or humans lose their hippocampus to surgery or injury, their ability to form new memories of facts and events is also lost. Instead, a person lives in a strange world where everything they experience just fades away, even while older memories from the time before the damage are untouched.
The amygdala is two almond sized neural clusters in the limbic system, located deep within the temporal lobe of the brain. It is involved in many of our emotions and motivations, particularly those that are related to survival. The amygdala is involved in the processing of emotions such as fear, anger and pleasure and receives emotionally rich memory from the hippocampus. Lesions of the amygdala reduce responses to stress, particularly conditioned emotional responses.
Thinking back to elementary school, I can recall a memory that is still vivid in my mind and how the