Imagine death. Maybe yours, maybe someone else’s. Within hours, your brain, donated to science, is sliced into thin slices with a sterile, sharp surgical knife. Your memories, thoughts, motor skills, all that is you - sliced. Just like a loaf of bread. Just that lifeless and replaceable.
So. That photo. Wow. The accompanying article. Also wow.
That is a real human brain. Can you believe it? The person whose body it controlled: recently, very recently, deceased. And the slices? Each one will be sliced into a thousand more slices, then died and photographed and cataloged for a project whose goal is to map the genetic make-up of the human brain.
The co-founder of Microsoft is the project’s main financier. The scientists involved have already mapped the brain of a mouse, slice by slice.
Incredible, I think, and well worth reading about. Especially because the article’s author happens to be brilliant. Such a good writer. I googled him and found another piece I enjoyed just as much, about how stressful cities are for your brain and how to counteract the stress with parks and open spaces.
But first read the brain-mapping article. It’s fascinating.
(Photo, by the way, is by David Clugston and from Wired.com)
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