Question: in which part of your brain keeps your emotionand what part keeps your knowledge

Emily Robinson answered on 17 Jun 2011:

Hi diviatasha,

Well there is a small area in the middle of both sides of your brain called the amygdala which is thought to control emotion. It is important in processing emotion and also with retrieving emotional memory. There is also an area in each side called the hippocampus which is very important in short term memory and memory retrieval. If you damage your hippocampus you can actually loose the ability to make new memories! Also if you only damage your amygdala but have a normal hippocampus you can get a really weird disorder where you think people around you have been replaced by imposters as you recognise the person visually but you don’t feel any emotion towards them so you think they must be strangers!!! How cool is that! Knowledge is a bit of a more tricky thing to localise as by learning you change the strength of the individual connections between your brain cells. The stronger the connection the easier it is to remember. Therefore your brain is never fixed and it is constantly changing with all your experiences! There are loads of cool casestudies of people with damage to specific areas of their brains which have really helped neuroscientists understand what areas of the brain do. Let me know if you want some more examples!!