• Question: What is your favourite part of the brain and why?

    Asked by kaboom2 to Tim, Damien, Rachael, Simon, Suzi on 17 Jun 2011. This question was also asked by susejdog, dan7, bonfilia.
    • Photo: Tim Fosker

      Tim Fosker answered on 14 Jun 2011:

      Hi @kaboom2

      The hippocampus is my favourite part – it is involved in storing memories. I like it because of its name ‘hippocampus’ from the Greek for seahorse. The structure actually looks like a seahorse from the right angle. You can probably find a picture of it looking like a seahorse if you search online.

    • Photo: Suzi Gage

      Suzi Gage answered on 17 Jun 2011:

      Hi @kaboom2 and @susejdog
      Ooh, good question.
      Loads of bits of the brain have brilliant names, cerabellum, hippocampus, amygdala, fusiform gyrus…

      But my favourite part of the brain is the corpus callosum. This is the part that joins the 2 hemispheres (sides or halves) of the brain together.

      It is possible to survive without it intact, in fact cutting it used to be a treatment for severe epilepsy. But if you do this it can lead to a strange condition where the 2 sides of your body don’t know what the other one is doing. There have been some great experiments done looking at this, it was one of my favourite things to learn about as an Undergraduate studying psychology.

      Let me know if you’re like more info.

      Do you have a favourite part of the brain?

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