Neuroscience

The unique neural wiring of the human hippocampus may maximize memory

The memory center contains sparse but robust nerve cell connections

Several nerve cells on a black background. The cell bodies are white, and each has dozens of blue branches sprouting outward.

Pyramidal cells (shown) are the main type of nerve cell in the hippocampus, the brain’s memory center.

Jake Watson

By McKenzie Prillaman

Read another version of this article at Science News Explores

Our brain’s memory center bears a sleek design.

A peek into living tissue from human hippocampi, a brain region crucial for memory and learning, revealed relatively few cell-to-cell connections for the vast number of nerve cells.