Where the brain controls memory

The human brain is made up of three parts: the brainstem, the cerebellum, and the cerebrum. The brainstem can be thought of as the primitive brain, whose main function is to transmit sensory information and control certain basic activities, such as breathing and heartbeat.

The brainstem does not have any thinking and sensory functions. The cerebellum is responsible for the integration of muscles and has motor memory functions. As we age and the structure of the body matures, the cerebellum is gradually trained to improve its physiological functions.

However, when it comes to movement, we don't have the level of complete control. You can test it yourself: without moving your other fingers, try flexing your little finger to touch the palm.

It's easy to do this with your smart thumb and forefinger. The brain is the center of human memory, emotion and thinking, and is composed of two hemispheres, covered with a cerebral cortex 1 2 mm thick. Without this cerebral cortex, we would only be in a vegetative state.

The brain itself is divided into four brain regions or four lobes: the frontal lobe (the main structure that controls abstract thinking), the parietal lobe (which helps process sensory information), the occipital lobe (which is responsible for vision), and the temporal lobe (which grasps memory, hearing, and language functions).The frontal lobe is located anteriorly to the brain, followed by the parietal lobe, the occipital lobe is the smallest below, and the temporal lobe is located on either side of the brain, near the temples.

As the nerve center of the human body, the brain directs all physiological activities of the human body, such as the movement of organs, the movement of limbs, the generation of sensations, the coordination of muscles, speech, literacy, thinking, etc. Scientific studies have proven that specific brain functions originate from a certain area of the brain, so the brain is divided into different areas, such as sensory, memory, language, literacy, and motor areas. The discovery of the function of various brain regions was initially obtained through the study of some special cases.

For example, an impact on the left hemisphere of the brain can cause paralysis on the right side, such as the right leg, right arm, and right hand; Similarly, striking the right hemisphere of the brain causes paralysis in the left side. A doctor named Broka discovered in 1861 that striking an area of the left hemisphere caused a speech disorder. Dr. Wernick discovered in 1874 that another center close to the Broca Center also dominated language.

When the center of the Broca zone is damaged, the person can still speak meaningful sentences, but does not conform to the rules of grammar. On the other hand, if the Wernick Center is damaged, a person can say something close to the right thing, but it doesn't make sense. There was a Japanese doctor named Inoue, who, during the Russo-Japanese War in the 20th century, found some wounded people who had been pierced through the back of the skull by bullets, and although they did not hit their eyes, they were still blind.

From this, Dr. Inoue came to the conclusion that the back of the brain is responsible for perception. The Broca and Wernick areas, which control the language center, the hippocampus, and the amygdala, which are related to memory, are all found in this way.

Memory in the temporal lobe of the brain.

The medial, called the hippocampus.

, which can be in charge of human memory storage. The human brain resembles a fist, and the surface of the brain can be roughly divided into five parts, with the frontal lobe in front.

The top is the parietal lobe, the back is the occipital lobe, the middle part is called the temporal lobe, and the part of the temporal lobe that is rolled up is called the hippocampus.

Different parts of the brain have different functions, such as the main canal movements of the frontal lobes, i.e. muscle movements such as arms, legs, and speech, as well as human emotions. The occipital lobe is mainly responsible for a person's vision, the visual center. There is also a clinical part called the superior temporal gyrus, which is mainly responsible for human hearing, that is, it can understand other people's speech, because of the function of neurons in this area of the brain.

Therefore, nerve cell necrosis or impaired function in different areas will produce different clinical manifestations.

In the 50s of the last century, scientists discovered that the "hippocampus" in the brain plays a crucial role in storing information - if the hippocampus is removed, the previous memories will disappear along with it. I don't know exactly how. (But now the latest psychological research has found that memories are not stored in a specific area of the brain, i.e., memory storage is diffuse, that is, memories are distributed throughout the brain.)

There is no very precise answer.

Memories are encoded, stored, and retrieved, and the brain retains self-confidence for a period of time. This includes recognition, retention, recognition and recall (for example, when we are watching TV, that is, the use of both visual cells and auditory cells) in the processing of information, memory is the process of encoding, storing and extracting input information, from the perspective of information processing, the first learning and memorization of English is just a process of input coding. The ability of human memory is very amazing physiologically, it can store 1015 bits (bytes) of information, but only 10% of each person's memory treasure is mined, and there is still more room for memory to play.

The temporal lobe is most closely related to memory, once the temporal lobe is damaged, the person will lose the ability to remember for a long time, whether it is visual memory or auditory memory, the patient will inevitably show significant memory loss. This is mainly due to two reasons, on the one hand, the neocortex layer on the lateral temporal lobe has an important impact on memory. Studies have shown that the effects of damage to the neocortex of the temporal lobe on both sides are different:

If the left temporal lobe is removed, the person's verbal memory will be affected; If the right temporal lobe is removed, the memory of complex geometric figures, the learning and recall of meaningless shapes, the memory of faces, and sounds are severely impaired.

On the other hand, because the inside of the temporal lobe is the hippocampal structure, the hippocampus plays an important role in long-term memory, mainly to solidify long-term memory. Once the hippocampus is damaged, a person will develop memory impairment, and the more severe the damage, the more severe the memory impairment.

Studies have shown that the memory impairment caused by unilateral damage to the left and right hippocampuses is different and has significant differences in nature. Damage to the left hippocampus directly impairs the memory of speech material, numbers, and meaningless syllables; Damage to the right hippocampus severely affects the memory of non-verbal materials, facial memory, and spatial position.