H.M's Brain Being Dissected

Sorry for the late notice–I didn’t have time to find this link yesterday when I first heard about it, but here it is. A live video feed of the brain dissection of Patient H.M.

Henry Molaison suffered from severe seizures and underwent a brain operation to stop them. The doctors removed his hippocampus, which is a seahorse-shaped structure in your midbrain. His seizures went away, but the removal of this brain area caused retrograde amnesia for the rest of his life. That is, he could never form any new memories.

He was able to learn how to do things like solve puzzles, but not remember that he had done them. It’s given way to a fascinating study of how memory works in both humans and animals.

Anyway, I love this brain science stuff. The dissection ends today so you only have a few hours left to see some of his brain being sliced up!

More via the NYT (“Dissection Begins on Famous Brain”)