Which brain region is known for memory formation and spatial navigation?

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The hippocampus specializes in forming new memories and guiding spatial navigation. It encodes and consolidates declarative memories (like events and facts) and helps create a cognitive map of the environment so you can navigate you’ve never been before. Neurons in the hippocampus fire in specific locations to track where you are, a phenomenon known as place coding, which underpins spatial awareness. This region works with nearby areas to transfer memories into long-term storage, and damage to it famously impairs the ability to form new memories and to navigate new surroundings. The cerebral cortex handles broad storage and higher-level processing, the amygdala adds emotional context to memories, and the hypothalamus governs basic drives and hormonal regulation—areas that don’t specifically combine memory formation with spatial navigation the way the hippocampus does.