This, pardon the phrase, is kind of mind-blowing . The Brain Observatory, a UCSD lab, is slicing the brain of amesiac patient H.M., one of the most-studied people in the whole history of science, into 2500 sections-- and the process is being broadcast live.
We are slicing the brain of the amnesic patient H.M. into giant histological sections. The whole brain specimen has been successfully frozen to -40C and will be sectioned during one continuous session that we expect will last approximately 30 hours (+ some breaks and some sleep in between). The procedure was designed for the safe collection of all tissue slices of the brain and for the acquisition of blockface images throughout the entire block.
It's really worth checking out, first as a kind of morbid wonder ("oh my god, that's really a brain!"), then as a technically fascinating event ("it's sort of like one of those meat cutters at the deli-- and is that a sumi-e brush they're using to take each slice?"). Where you go from there is up to you. Me, I find it kind of an amazing tribute to someone who contributed a lot to our understanding of the neurological foundations of memory.
The man was named Henry Molaison, though before he died last year he was only publicly known at H.M. According to the Times, he "lost the ability to form new memories after a brain operation in 1953, and over the next half century he became the most studied patient in brain science."
Before H.M., scientists thought that memory was widely distributed throughout the brain, not dependent on any one area. But by testing Mr. Molaison, researchers in Montreal and Hartford soon established that the areas that were removed — in the medial temporal lobe, about an inch deep in the brain level with the ear — are critical to forming new memories. One organ, the hippocampus, is especially crucial and is now the object of intense study.
In a series of studies, Mr. Molaison soon altered forever the understanding of learning by demonstrating that a part of his memory was fully intact. A 1962 paper by Dr. Brenda Milner of the Montreal Neurological Institute described a landmark study in which she had Mr. Molaison try to trace a line between two five-point stars, one inside the other.
Each time he tried the experiment, it seemed to him an entirely new experience. Yet he gradually became more proficient — showing that there are at least two systems in the brain for memory, one for events and facts and another for implicit or motor learning, for things like playing a guitar or riding a bicycle.
I keep coming back to the Web site, and looking at the computer-driven slicer taking off another section in one window; the control panel of the microtome in another; and some grad students or techs in a third window. Computers and people, workplace and wonder, and the brain-- at once intensely human, and seen this way very alien.
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