What happens to memories once we make them? Where do they live? Why do they last? More technically: what mechanisms enable us to move memories from working memory into long term memory? And, what does sleep have to do with all this? Some biology will help us out here. Let’s look for a moment at two important regions of the brain: the cortex , which is the big labyrinthine web of cauliflower in the picture below, and the hippocampus , a much smaller region of the brain deeper into the center of our heads. The cortex plays a large role in conscious thought and in the processing of information in working memory. The hippocampus, however, plays an essential role in the formation of long-term memory , the translation of information from working memory to long-term memory. In fact, without the hippocampus, we wouldn't be able to make any new long-term memories at all. (Kind of like the movie "Memento." Also, there’s a r...
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