The Hypothalamus: Our Unknown King

By: Eric Villalba

The hypothalamus, king of our body’s world, is kinda, sorta part of the brain. That is, while it’s attached to the base of the brain and referred to as part of the brain, the hypothalamus isn’t protected by the blood/brain barrier.

And it’s this combination of importance and vulnerability that puts us in a world of hurt. Unless we get educated, we will probably do bad things to our hypothalamus every day.

So what does the hypothalamus do? It keeps our bodies in balance (homeostasis in medical terms). It controls body temperature, hunger, thirst, fatigue, anger, sex, emotional attachment, our circadian clock–and …read more