The hippocampus (say: hih-poh-cam-pus) is a part that's amazingly cool because you use it to remember the way to school! The hippocampus is part of the cerebrum, and it's the area of your brain that deals with memory. There are different kinds of memory: two of them are called short-term and long-term. Try to remember what you had for breakfast today - that's an example of short-term memory. It's information your brain just received. Now think about your very first day of school or last year's birthday party. Those are examples of events that are stored in your long-term memory.

Your hippocampus has the big job of transferring information between short-term and long-term memory. It's a lot of work, but the hippocampus is always there, making sure you remember little things, like where you left your yo-yo, and big things, like your camping vacation two summers ago.

The pituitary gland (say: pih-too-ih-tairy) is very small - only about the size of a pea! Its job is to produce and release hormones into your body. If your clothes from last year are too small, it's because your pituitary gland released special hormones that made you grow. This gland is a big player in puberty, too. This is the time when boys' and girls' bodies go through major changes as they slowly become men and women, all thanks to hormones released by the pituitary gland. This little gland also plays a role with lots of other hormones, like ones that control the amount of sugars and water in your body. And it helps keep your metabolism (say: muh-ta-boh-lih-zum) going - your metabolism is everything that goes on in your body to keep it alive and growing and give you energy, like breathing, digesting food, and moving your blood around.

Last but not least is the hypothalamus (say: hy-poh-tha-luh-muss), which sits right in the center of your brain, in the middle of the action. The hypothalamus is like your brain's inner thermometer. It knows what temperature your body should be (about 98.6 degrees Fahrenheit or 37 degrees Celsius), and it sends messages telling your body to either sweat or shiver. Why? Sweating when you're hot and shivering when you're cold are your body's ways of trying to keep your inner temperature the same - no matter what you're doing or what the temperature outside is like. Remember the last time you ran around and got really sweaty? Your hypothalamus could tell that your body temperature was going up from all that running, and it sent a message to your skin to sweat. When you began sweating, your body started to cool off.