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
neuroscientists looking to unlock their
secrets
franciene Bennis is the brain banks
director to find more effective 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 one-half 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 just
cortex as well 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 way is about 1400 grams just
over 3 pounds on Alzheimer’s case
800-900 less than 2 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
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
neuroscientists looking to unlock their
secrets
franciene Bennis is the brain banks
director to find more effective 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 one-half 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 just
cortex as well 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 way is about 1400 grams just
over 3 pounds on Alzheimer’s case
800-900 less than 2 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
Please follow and like us: