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Patient's Brain Sectioned - Historical Medical Procedure

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user098123
Posts: 6072 - Karma: 18
Copied this from another forum I am on:

Neuroscience history taking place. http://thebrainobservatory.ucsd.edu/

The brain of patient H.M. is being sectioned today, right now (there is a link for a live feed on that page).

Some of you already know this , but H.M. was a patient who received a bilateral hippocampal removal - which resulted in profound anterograde amnesia (similar to the man in the movie "Memento", or Drew Barrymore in "50 first dates"), and which helped clue everyone in on how important the hippocampus is for memory. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HM_(patient)

H.M. had been a big part of neuroscience research, as a subject (particularly learning and memory research) since the surgery, and he died last year. His brain is being sectioned in the lab of Jacopo Annese, at UC San Diego

The purpose of the removal of the Bilateral Hippocampal removal was to fix the patients Epilepsy, which resulted in complete loss of the ability to change short term memory to long term memory.

Click the link, it is sureal.

Slightly NSFW, they are cutting apart an actual brain in live action.
Dec 3 2009 12:11AM
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user098123
Posts: 6072 - Karma: 18
Little more info:

"We are slicing the brain of the amnesic patient H.M. into giant histological sections. The whole brain specimen has been successfully frozen to -40C and will be sectioned during one continuous session that we expect will last approximately 30 hours (+ some breaks and some sleep in between). The procedure was designed for the safe collection of all tissue slices of the brain and for the acquisition of blockface images throughout the entire block. The procedure will mark the completion of Phase 1 of the project which will include ex vivo MR-imaging, blockface imaging, tissue slicing and cryogenic storage of all histological sections"
Dec 3 2009 12:14AM
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The_Future
Posts: 1418 - Karma: 607
Very cool... thanks for sharing!
Dec 3 2009 12:15AM
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jason...
Posts: 9006 - Karma: 780
I kept reading 'sectioned' as 'suctioned' and was very very confused until I finally figured it out. Interesting stuff.
Dec 3 2009 12:19AM
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MCIRONCOCK
Posts: 3094 - Karma: 30
I might say something about this to my psych teacher, we just did a chapter on the brain and its functions.
Dec 3 2009 12:32AM
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user098123
Posts: 6072 - Karma: 18
It's live until the 4th I believe.
Dec 3 2009 12:37AM
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ZavierV
Posts: 5077 - Karma: 100
That's so cool. I watched for a bit but no one was in the room. Break time I guess.
Dec 3 2009 1:13AM
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user098123
Posts: 6072 - Karma: 18
Ah ya probably, you will have to check back when it is actually slicing, its nuts.
Dec 3 2009 1:21AM
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ZavierV
Posts: 5077 - Karma: 100
"we will return tomorrow at 8am PST"


Stoke. Unfortunately I'll be missing it because of my 8am o-chem lab.
Dec 3 2009 2:25AM
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pmills
Posts: 7162 - Karma: 59
good thread, thanks!
Dec 3 2009 9:01AM
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pmills
Posts: 7162 - Karma: 59
Was H.M. the guy who would go and play tennis with the researchers every day, thinking he didn't know how to play? Eventually he got pretty good at it despite never remembering he played the day before.
Dec 3 2009 9:05AM
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Snowcase
Posts: 11456 - Karma: 634
My threads for later
Dec 3 2009 9:58AM
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user098123
Posts: 6072 - Karma: 18
Dunno about the Tennis but you can read more about him here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HM_%28patient%29
Dec 3 2009 10:23AM
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pmills
Posts: 7162 - Karma: 59
i would assume it's the same guy, if he was learning motor memory stuff like drawing a star with the opposite hand and what not, it fits the same model
Dec 3 2009 11:21AM
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pmills
Posts: 7162 - Karma: 59
i want to see brains NOWWW
Dec 3 2009 11:51AM
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soulskier
Posts: 17805 - Karma: 3,821
to me that the most intriguing part about this kind of patient, they cant form memories but they somehow can learn new skiil/games?
fantastic
Dec 3 2009 11:56AM
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bibs_skibum
Posts: 4462 - Karma: 449
HM died?! No shit. His case study was pretty damn interesting. Alot of brain function and and especially the significance of the hippocampus was learned from him.
Dec 3 2009 12:09PM
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Brenone
Posts: 4944 - Karma: 296
thats amazing.
Dec 3 2009 12:15PM
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user098123
Posts: 6072 - Karma: 18
Looks like they are setting up to begin cutting again.
Dec 3 2009 12:50PM
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njwa88
Posts: 465 - Karma: 15
yeah, I'm watching a bit now, but the white cube is like ice around the brain? I dont understand fully, is the guy alive or dead?
Dec 3 2009 12:54PM
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njwa88
Posts: 465 - Karma: 15
I don't quite get what they are doing now??
Dec 3 2009 12:57PM
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user098123
Posts: 6072 - Karma: 18
Person died, they are taking cross sections of the guys brain to gain a better understanding of the structure.  It is being cut in 70 micron sections.  The brain is frozen in to the block of ice and they are currently cutting through the frontal lobe.  Once it starts it will make more sense.
Dec 3 2009 1:00PM
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njwa88
Posts: 465 - Karma: 15
oh okok thanks
but did the guy die before the slicing or during?
Dec 3 2009 1:04PM
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GreekAR6
Posts: 527 - Karma: 11
This is pretty freakin' cool, good find
Dec 3 2009 1:09PM
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user098123
Posts: 6072 - Karma: 18
He died in 2008 and they learned a ton from him, so now they are continuing it.
Dec 3 2009 1:16PM
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RudyGarmisch
Posts: 25443 - Karma: 13,844
If you wanna get technical, I'll bet its not ice, more of a low freezing level plastic-ey compound. Tissues that freeze arent great for histology, structures rupture as the freezing water expands, so most of the fluid in the tissue is exchanged through immersion baths in alcohols and sucrose mixtures.
Dec 3 2009 1:24PM
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user098123
Posts: 6072 - Karma: 18
True but ice doesn't technically always mean water either.  Dry Ice is one example.  I said ice out of habit but yes, I am sure that it isn't water.  Even using a high flow coolant cycler at -40 like they are doing wouldn't be good enough for ice they would need to use something with different thermal properties.
Dec 3 2009 1:32PM
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Nicholas.
Posts: 10905 - Karma: 60
they are cutting right now, its weird .
Dec 3 2009 1:44PM
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KrazyistKarl
Posts: 1725 - Karma: 599
wow very interesting
Dec 3 2009 1:58PM
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njwa88
Posts: 465 - Karma: 15
they just posted a little massage saying: 'Little dry ice break, sections are looking good :)'
so yeah you are right they are using dry ice.
Dec 3 2009 2:06PM
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gmack24
Posts: 4636 - Karma: 31
so is that thing slicing paper thin pieces of the brain off?
Dec 3 2009 2:32PM
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Nicholas.
Posts: 10905 - Karma: 60
cmon dude...what do you think?
Dec 3 2009 2:34PM
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gmack24
Posts: 4636 - Karma: 31
Nevermind I understand. They are using dry ice.
Dec 3 2009 2:40PM
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user098123
Posts: 6072 - Karma: 18
Ya they are, its a glorified meat cutter.
Dec 3 2009 3:19PM
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GreekAR6
Posts: 527 - Karma: 11
I e-mailed this to my psych professor and in his reply he posed a very interesting thought:

"I wonder about the ethics about asking someone with no memory consolidation to sign a consent form to give his brain to science!"
Dec 3 2009 3:45PM
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