Behind the Brain

About a week ago, I had the opportunity to dissect a brain. Now being highly interested in neuroscience, I was looking forward to this dissection. Upon discovering that the brain we were dissecting was a lamb brain, not a human one, I was a bit disappointed. But still, seeing, dissecting, and feeling a real life brain had some outcomes that no amount of researching could give me. What were these outcomes?

1. The Texture of a Brain

I had always imagined a brain to be slimy, or at the very least a bit gooey. But I had thought that this gooeyness came from the CSF (Cerebrospinal Fluid). However, when cutting into the brain, while I had found that the brain had the consistency and feel of a mushroom (due to the preservatives used to preserve it), it still had an ample amount of slime in it. This was due to the water/fat filled cavities the brain had.

2. The Tree of Life

The first cut I made was a vertical cut along the median longitudinal fissure (shown above).

This resulted in the two hemispheres of the brain being divided. Importantly, the divided cerebellum, showed a really nice structure, colloquially known as “The Tree of Life”. This “Tree of Life” is shown below in the red circle.

3. The White Lines?

The last observation I made was something I had not expected at all. Prior to this dissection, I had always expected the brain to look like a can of worms. However, inside the brain, there aren’t as many crevices as we see on the top. Rather, the connections appear to be made of white lines (shown below).

These white lines are exactly what I thought they were, connections! They’re the white matter of the brain, the network of nerve fibers that connect different parts of the brain. And since the white matter lies mostly below the grey matter, we can see how the white matter increases in density as we go towards the inside of the brain in the picture below.