11 p.m. a typical work night for Luis
Fernandez earlier today some precious
cargo arrived it’s been chilling on ice
all day in that box is a recently
deceased freshly packed human brain
about all we know is it’s a male it’s in
its 70s and if it’s not preserved within
the next hour or so its quality will
start to decline for the Harvard brain
tissue resource center also known as the
brain Bank this is one of over 7,000
brains it’s by far the largest brain
repository in the world a veritable
stockroom of intelligence packing
freezers and lining shelves for more
than 25 years the brain Bank has been
collecting and doling brains out to
neuro scientists looking to unlock their
secrets these numbers represents a donor
franciene Bennis is the brain banks
director to find more effective our
cures we simply have to study the brain
there’s no other way around it the
problem is there are never enough normal
brains to go around and they’re a
necessity for science the brain bank
receives three hundred or so brains each
year but only around 30 are considered
normal
that means demand is high oh my go ahead
and bisect the hemispheres now first
Lewis separates left brain from right
preserves 1/2 in formalin for later
anatomical studies then moves on to the
other half he removes all the critical
parts brain stem hippocampus amygdala
and precisely sections off the rest of
it this is just cortex here I think to
the cortex and so the brain lab looks
eerily like a kitchen but it’s not the
spectacle one might expect
finally Lewis freezes away all the
samples to keep the proteins and DNA
fresh for genetic analysis
then histologies Tim Wheelock takes over
this is an Alzheimer’s brain just
looking at it we know something’s wrong
this one’s normal a normal brain on
average weighs about fourteen hundred
grams just over three pounds on
Alzheimer’s case 800-900 less than two
pounds actually shrinking you’ve got
neurons billions of neurons dying now
granted scientists can do similar
comparisons without the hassle of
removing someone’s brain brain scans
like MRI and PET scans can tell us if
the brain has shrunk they can even watch
it at work to show which areas of the
brain have problems but they can’t do
what Tim’s doing now this is what
happens when melanoma gets into the
brain and that is to peer inside the
brain cells you can’t do any research on
the tissue because you really don’t know
what it is for now this is the only way
to get those cells and the only way to
fully understand what’s really wrong or
right with the human brain
[Music]
Fernandez earlier today some precious
cargo arrived it’s been chilling on ice
all day in that box is a recently
deceased freshly packed human brain
about all we know is it’s a male it’s in
its 70s and if it’s not preserved within
the next hour or so its quality will
start to decline for the Harvard brain
tissue resource center also known as the
brain Bank this is one of over 7,000
brains it’s by far the largest brain
repository in the world a veritable
stockroom of intelligence packing
freezers and lining shelves for more
than 25 years the brain Bank has been
collecting and doling brains out to
neuro scientists looking to unlock their
secrets these numbers represents a donor
franciene Bennis is the brain banks
director to find more effective our
cures we simply have to study the brain
there’s no other way around it the
problem is there are never enough normal
brains to go around and they’re a
necessity for science the brain bank
receives three hundred or so brains each
year but only around 30 are considered
normal
that means demand is high oh my go ahead
and bisect the hemispheres now first
Lewis separates left brain from right
preserves 1/2 in formalin for later
anatomical studies then moves on to the
other half he removes all the critical
parts brain stem hippocampus amygdala
and precisely sections off the rest of
it this is just cortex here I think to
the cortex and so the brain lab looks
eerily like a kitchen but it’s not the
spectacle one might expect
finally Lewis freezes away all the
samples to keep the proteins and DNA
fresh for genetic analysis
then histologies Tim Wheelock takes over
this is an Alzheimer’s brain just
looking at it we know something’s wrong
this one’s normal a normal brain on
average weighs about fourteen hundred
grams just over three pounds on
Alzheimer’s case 800-900 less than two
pounds actually shrinking you’ve got
neurons billions of neurons dying now
granted scientists can do similar
comparisons without the hassle of
removing someone’s brain brain scans
like MRI and PET scans can tell us if
the brain has shrunk they can even watch
it at work to show which areas of the
brain have problems but they can’t do
what Tim’s doing now this is what
happens when melanoma gets into the
brain and that is to peer inside the
brain cells you can’t do any research on
the tissue because you really don’t know
what it is for now this is the only way
to get those cells and the only way to
fully understand what’s really wrong or
right with the human brain
[Music]
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