It powers everything we do, yet remains one of our biggest mysteries.<\/p>\n
But thanks to an unusual Peruvian museum dedicated entirely to the brain, visitors can get up close and personal with the most complex organ in the human body.<\/p>\n
\nThe \u201cbrain library\u201d at the Santo Toribio de Mogrovejo Hospital in Lima has a massive collection of diseased and healthy brains, giving researchers and also the general public a glimpse of what is going on inside our heads.<\/p>\n
It is the only museum in Latin America, and one of the few in the world, with a large collection of brains that is regularly open to the public.<\/p>\n
The hospital, which was founded more than three centuries ago, has a total of 2,912 brains collected over the years, nearly 300 of which are on display in a mind-opening exhibit.<\/p>\n
Some 20,000 people visit the museum each year.<\/p>\n
\u201cTouch a real skull,\u201d the museum invites them on arrival, proffering a specimen so visitors can feel the cranial bone structure and imagine how it holds two square meters (22 square feet) of intricately folded brain matter.<\/p>\n
The brains of this operation, so to speak, is neuropathologist Diana Rivas, who is hovering over an icy steel table choosing scientifically interesting specimens to add to the museum\u2019s collection.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is where we do the autopsies. I handle them myself,\u201d she tells AFP, barely looking up from the brain she is holding in her gloved hands.<\/p>\n
She has just removed this particular specimen from a jar of formaldehyde.<\/p>\n
It is about the size of a deflated football, and \u201chas the consistency of a rubber eraser,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n
She examines the brain\u2019s two hemispheres, which resemble giant walnuts, then carefully removes the thin layer of three membranes that hold them together, the meninges.<\/p>\n
Once open, the organ\u2019s fascinating geography is on full display: a labyrinth of gray and white tissue that holds the mysteries of thought, language and virtually every bodily function inside.<\/p>\n
Rivas gives a lesson as she dissects.<\/p>\n
\u201cA human brain weighs between 1.2 and 2.4 kilos (2 pounds 10 ounces and five pounds four ounces), depending on the height and weight of the person, and on the sex,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n
\u201cWomen\u2019s are more evolved than men\u2019s. What differentiates us is the evolution of language, which we use much more than men.\u201d<\/p>\n
The museum is divided into three parts: neuroanatomy, birth defects and brain damage caused by diseases such as cancer, Alzheimer\u2019s and the Zika virus.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe show students what a healthy brain looks like, and then a sick brain, like this one with cysticercosis, which causes convulsions,\u201d she says, pointing to a brain stained with marks left by invading tapeworms.<\/p>\n
The parasites are present in pork and can also be transmitted when people fail to wash their hands properly, she explains.<\/p>\n
Offering more food for thought, she points to another sick brain affected by arteriosclerosis \u2014 the result of eating too much fatty food, which clogs the arteries, including the ones feeding the brain.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is to remind us not to get carried away with the hamburgers. It\u2019s not good to abuse fatty foods,\u201d she says, pointing out the brain\u2019s blackened blood vessels.<\/p>\n
Speaking of food, she warns that visitors need a strong stomach for some parts of the exhibit, such as a display on encephalocele.<\/p>\n
The fatal birth defect happens when the \u201cneural tube\u201d that becomes the brain and spinal cord fails to develop normally during pregnancy, leaving the brain and the membranes around it hanging out through an opening in the baby\u2019s skull.<\/p>\n
\u201cAround five percent of students are afraid when they see it. Some faint, others vomit,\u201d Rivas says matter-of-factly.\u2014AFP<\/p>\n
Image: Reuters<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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