Marathon brain cutting session at UCSD streamed live today

The Brain Observatory at the University of California San Diego is today beginning a 30-hour brain cutting session with a live online stream of the procedure wherein the brain of H.M., an amnestic patient, is being thinly sliced from front to back into whole-mount frozen histologic sections. Each brain slice will be approximately 70 microns thick, about the thickness of a human hair. An average-sized brain produces 2,600 to 3,000 such slices. The UCSD Brain Observatory, headed by Dr. Jacopo Annese, is dedicated to the study of the architecture of the human brain using multiple complementary imaging modalities, including autopsy. Thanks to Thomasina Bailey for alerting me to this extraordinary brain cutting event!