Human Brain: Hippocampus

Hippocampus is one of the many important components of human brain. The processes of long-term memory and emotional responses deal heavily on this part of brain.

Knowing hippocampus is particularly important to me because I have a great interest in the REM (Rapid Eye Movement) stage of sleep. REM is the part when we dream in our sleep. So, basically, studies have shown that our hippocampus is active during the REM stage because they are producing new cells and integrating these cells into the neural networks. Psychologists call these process as consolidation. Or to make it more understandable, consolidation is simply a process of integrating new information into previous information that we stored in our memory, i.e. making sense of the new information so that it can be stored in our long-term memory.

Researchers thus came up with a theory suggesting that the more REM we have, the more consolidation process happens; ie the better our memory is. What's more, not only can we benefit this REM stage at night sleep, it's applicable to taking a nap too as shown in a study done by neuroscientists at Harvard University. You can read more from this link.

Practical example:

Let say Ali and Abu have mathematic examination next week. They both allocate the same amount of study time; 4 hours, but they differ in their spacing time.

• Ali spends the whole 4 hours in a single study session (i.e. his revision is crammed in a day)
• Abu spaces his study time by spending 1 hour per study session (i.e. his revision is distributed in 4 days)

Whom do you think will score better in exam? Yes, Abu! Indeed, a lot of researches have been done to prove this. (If you are interested, you may want to look at researches on the spacing effect; viz. distributed practice and massed practice).

All in all, the take home message is; in order to enhance our memory consolidation, it's of great importance to sleep with dreams.

Questions to ponder:
- What happen if our hippocampus is damaged or worst, removed?
- How does this hippocampus removal affect our daily life?

** The most famous case study, not limited to just hippocampus study but in all of memory research involves HM (Henry Molaison). More interestingly, his hippocampus is still being displayed in a museum in California. 

Location of Hippocampus

Hippocampus of human brain compared to a sea horse