Brain of Patient H.M. Being Sliced, Streamed Live 199
buswolley writes "The slicing of the brain of the famous amnesic patient H.M. into giant histological sections is now in full swing, and is being streamed live. The brain specimen is frozen and sectioned whole during one continuous session that is expected to last approximately 30 hours."
HM (Score:5, Informative)
For those of you unaware, HM had essentially complete loss of long term memory, but a normal short term/working memory and, curiously the ability to commit long term learning to his motor memory. So, he could learn new motor skills (an example would be juggling, but I do not know if HM learned that particular task), but not high-level memories.
If you're interested in more, then try reading the excellent book: "The man who mistook his wife for his hat".
Mirror (Score:5, Informative)
http://neurosciences.ucsd.edu/ [ucsd.edu]
Article (Score:3, Informative)
http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/80beats/2009/12/02/slicing-up-h-m-s-famous-brain-live-and-on-the-internet/ [discovermagazine.com]
Henry Gustav Molaison (Score:3, Informative)
Re:HM (Score:4, Informative)
Yeah. That was exactly what I was wondering when I read this. A nice link to wikipedia [wikipedia.org] would've been nice.
P.S. UC San Diego. Go Tritons!
Re:HM (Score:5, Informative)
Re:brain structures (Score:2, Informative)
about the normal brain structures? maybe none, BUT they might learn how his brain rewired itself, and get an idea of what areas of the brain weren't connected anymore to get a better idea of why he had no long term memory (and provide information about how the brain actually does that!), it at the very least might shed light on how the brain forms those connections
Re:Necessary? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:HM (Score:1, Informative)
I am a neuroscientist, seriously don't read that book, its filled with of exaggeration and confabulation. Oliver Sacks writes well enough to entertain the un-informed but his work is more fiction than not.
There are so many better books out there for the layperson.
I recommend this book http://tinyurl.com/yjfo44p
Paraffin slices are very useful (Score:4, Informative)
So for those who are wondering what the application of this is, there are many.
Re:HM (Score:4, Informative)
The full link to the book is here:
http://www.amazon.com/Phantoms-Brain-Probing-Mysteries-Human/dp/0688172172/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1259799787&sr=8-1 [amazon.com]
Re:Not H. M. (Score:1, Informative)
Dear Anonymous Coward,
For the record, we don't like being told what to do.
Thank you,
The Moderators.