The part of your brain responsible for processing memory is the hippocampus. It is believed that memories are formed at the level of individual nerve cells. The synapse is the point at which adjoining nerve cells touch, and it is this juncture that is the building block of memory systems. Information moves across the synapse and the information signal is carried inside a cell by a second messenger (known as cyclic AMP), which then activates other cell machinery. The end result is the switching on of a gene that regulates memory. The product of the gene, a protein, promotes synaptic growth and can convert short-term memory to long-term memory.