the.com/hippocampus
a seahorse-shaped librarian that decides which moments become memories and which evaporate
means A small, curved structure deep in the brain that plays a central role in forming new memories and in spatial navigation; it's also the anatomical name for the seahorse genus.
from From Greek 'hippokampos,' stitched together from 'hippos' (horse) and 'kampos' (sea monster) — the mythical sea-horse that drew Poseidon's chariot. Sixteenth-century anatomists, peering at this ridge of brain tissue and finding it eerily seahorse-shaped, borrowed the creature's name. The seahorse itself had already inherited the word, so the brain and the fish are cousins, both named for a monster that never existed.
- name origin
- Greek for seahorse, which it actually resembles
- grows neurons
- one of few brain regions making new cells in adults
- taxi proof
- London cabbies have measurably enlarged hippocampi
- first to fall
- Alzheimer's attacks it early, stealing recent memories
- sleep job
- replays the day's events to lock in learning
seahorse — marine animal named after the brain structure, genus hippocampus with 46+ species
hippocampus brain region — seahorse-shaped structure in temporal lobe critical for memory formation in humans