Now imagine
looking through the side of your head at a cross-section of your
brain. You would see the downstairs part of your brain, the limbic
brain. The limbic brain is located below the the cortex
(upstairs), in front of the cerebellum and above the brain
stem. 
The
limbic brain evolved between 200 and 300 million years ago and is
the seat of your emotions. It also maintains your blood pressure,
heart rate, body temperature and blood sugar levels.
The
limbic brain is critical to learning and for short-term and
long-term memory. It stores memories of your life
experiences.
The
scientist Robert Ornstein says that the easiest way to remember
the functions of the limbic brain is the four 'F's' of survival :
feeding, fighting, fleeing and sexual reproduction!!
To
explore your limbic brain in more details, use your
mouse to hover over the words in the image below to learn about the different
areas.
