Brain of Patient H.M. Being Sliced, Streamed Live

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."

Streaming? Not any more

[cdrudge]

Well, it was prior to being posted on /.

Re:

[Monkeedude1212]

I'm sure buswolley is avidly against human dissection and posted this story just to crash the video server. It all makes sense, its the perfect plan! The only piece missing from this puzzle is proof!

Re:

[buswolley]

Well, I was hoping it was going to make up for that last neuroanatomy exam.

Re:

[Monkeedude1212]

Is that to say that you didn't do well on an exam where the subject was neuroanatomy,

or that you didn't do well on an examination of YOUR neuroanatomy? (That'd be awkward...)

Re:

[buswolley]

No comment.

Re:

[syousef]

Well, it was prior to being posted on /.

Now it's just steaming...soon to be on fire!

Re:

[dargaud]

It's exactly how I read the story title: "Brain of patient H.M. being sliced, steamed alive". And my first thought was, why, it's so much better fried after being rolled in bread crumbs... That was 1st thing in the morning, before coffee.

Re:

[daeley]

Well, in all fairness, the camera operator got a splitting headache. ;)

This is ...

[Conchobair]

Zombie Pr0n.

Re:

[buswolley]

Each slice is fixed in gelatin. Remarkably, it doesnt get damaged as the slice gets crumpled up.

Re:

[buswolley]

Deli Sliced brain though.. yeah definitely for Zombies.

Re:

[dwywit]

Carpaccio for Zombies?

Re:

[niktemadur]

Deli Sliced brain

Headcheese, very European.
Or you could do some authentic Mexican food, dice up the brain and toss the chunks into a vat of simmering bone marrow soup, in which case the brains are called sesos.
No joke, I've had this with a dash of lemon and besides being super tasty, it's an incredible hangover recipe, although the amounts of cholesterol involved are ridiculously high.

Speaking of hardcore food from the central Mexico region, the only thing I can think of that I haven't dared try yet are esc

Re:

[bronney]

Hey bro, Hong Kong welcomes you. We eat chicken testes here.

Re:

[tsa]

I think you mean cock testes.

So...

[chill]

I'm guessing H.M. is dead, right? Wasn't this a scene out of Hannibal Lecter? Excuse me while I dig up a good chianti and some fava beans.

Re:

[MichaelSmith]

He's dead now, for sure.

Re:So...

[rattaroaz]

Not necessarily. He just doesn't have a brain. He could still be a lawyer.

Re:So...

[MightyMartian]

Not necessarily. He just doesn't have a brain. He could still be a lawyer.

Or a Slashdot moderator.

Re:So...

[OakDragon]

Not necessarily. He just doesn't have a brain. He could still be a lawyer.

Or a Slashdot moderator.

-1 Flamebait

Re:

[John Hasler]

> -1 Flamebait

No. +5 Troll

Re:

[FooAtWFU]

I'm sorry! The new moderation UI tricked me! I posted to undo it!!

Why couldn't they leave the 'Moderate' button to rest in peace?!?!?!

Re:So...

[celery stalk]

Not necessarily. He just doesn't have a brain. He could still be a lawyer.

Or a Slashdot editor.

Fixed that for ya.

They could have done it while he was alive ...

[tomhudson]

It's not like he would have remembered anything ...

Not H. M.

[SlowMovingTarget]

Some gal named Abby Normal...

Re:

[Eggplant62]

And to think, I'm sitting here watching Young Frankenstein on AMC. Good show.

HM

[serviscope_minor]

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".

Re:

[MWoody]

Man, that would an awesome movie: they train him to be an assassin. He knows nothing except what's in the folder he's given and, of course, how to KICK ASS. And, uh, do Parkour, since all action heroes can do that now.

Re:HM

[Jahava]

We can call it 1 / Memento [imdb.com].

Re:

[joocemann]

bastad! you beat me to it!

Re:

[CannonballHead]

Båstad is a locality and the seat of Båstad Municipality, Skåne County, Sweden with 4,793 inhabitants in 2005. [It] is located in a sheltered bay with the Hallandian ridge stretching behind it. The town borders the shore, whereafter the terrain raises until the dense vegetation of the ridge takes over.

I don't see what bringing a Swedish town [wikipedia.org] into the discussion adds... ;)

Re:

[joocemann]

It has everything to do with it. The swedes were the first to dissect brains, and are also the first in the store on black friday. Needless to say, they are close to this issue.

Bastads!

Re:

[Walt Dismal]

Wasn't it the Vikings who first attempted brain dissection? I believe it was Doctor Thor "Berserker Dougie" Houser who pioneered this in a remote fishing village. With sad results, as the patient was not only still alive but clinging to his leg. Never tell a Viking doctor you lied about having health insurance coverage, and do not have money hidden in your hut.

Re:

[BradleyUffner]

Memento was the opposite problem, wasnt it? Long term memory intact, no short term memory.

Re:

[masmullin]

I forget.

Re:

[pjt33]

The Bourne Identity?

Re:HM

[johncadengo]

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:

[pieisgood]

The only good thing about this school is our school hand signal.... the shocker. Also, there's a wiki link in the summary... so I guess I should be ashamed of my fellow student. AT LEAST RTFS!

Re:

[chfriley]

UCSD, APM, Scripps, Black's Beach etc. :-)

Re:

[johncadengo]

Ah, you sly detective. At the time of my post there was no link. They only changed it after I mentioned it. Yay!

Re:

[buswolley]

To be fair, that link wasn't present when he made that comment. They changed the summary.

Re:

[smitty777]

It was also interesting to cognitive scientists that he could acquire spatial memories as well. For example, he had obtained spatial knowledge about the new house he had moved to after the operation, and good memory of the spatial layout of the house. This brought us a long way in our understanding of the mechanisms behind the different types of memory, since we had pretty precise knowledge of what was removed.

Re:

[h4rr4r]

I recommend not using tinyurl for links on slashdot.
No one wants to be tricked into viewing goatse.

Re:

[Man Eating Duck]

I recommend not using tinyurl for links on slashdot.
No one wants to be tricked into viewing goatse.

Tinyurl has its uses, for instance on Slashdot where your complex/malformed url can be expected to be mangled by a filter.

If you're not yet immune to goatse you can visit this page [tinyurl.com] (I see the irony, it's actually a php page at tinyurl.com itself, copy & paste http://tinyurl.com/preview.php [tinyurl.com] if you prefer) and enable a handy url-preview. I presume that they use a cookie, so keep your tinfoil hat on.

Re:HM

[Digital Pizza]

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]

Mirror

[NiteMair]

http://neurosciences.ucsd.edu/ [ucsd.edu]

Article

[qmaqdk]

http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/80beats/2009/12/02/slicing-up-h-m-s-famous-brain-live-and-on-the-internet/ [discovermagazine.com]

Great!

[Vinegar Joe]

It's 6PM here and my suppertime. I think I'll pass.

Pity it's a week late...

[Anonymous Coward]

This is like a foodtv thanksgiving marathon for zombies!

they should record a video

[FudRucker]

and a progressive walkthrough the layers like an MRI, upload it to youtube or something

Re:

[MillionthMonkey]

If you want a movie of successive MRI layers, you can check out this animated GIF of an MRI scan of my own head (sagittal plane). [photobucket.com]

Re:

[MsGeek]

That. Is. Cool. Thanks for sharing!

Re:they should record a video

[timeOday]

Correct, watching the slicing is not really the point of this. What they do is make a bunch of very thin slices, scan them, then make a 3d computer image which can be viewed in cross section from any angle, or you can use algorithms to isolate given structures in the brain, estimate their volume, etc etc.

Braaiinnssss......

[rts008]

Zombie Food TV at it's finest!

Henry Gustav Molaison

[phizi0n]

I had to go through 3 links just to find the poor guy's name. http://www3.signonsandiego.com/news/2009/nov/30/hm-recollected-famous-amnesic-launches-bold-new-br/ [signonsandiego.com]

sectioned while alive?

[JustNiz]

Wow I misread the headline and thought it said the brain is being sectioned alive.
Now THAT would be worth streaming.

Re:sectioned while alive?

[HawkinsD]

I thought the same thing. Nowhere in the summary does it say that the patient is deceased.

May I suggest a clarification?

The slicing the brain of the famous amnesic patient H.M. WHO IS FRICKIN' DEAD into giant histological sections...

Re:

[skine]

They do call his brain a specimen, and state that it's frozen.

However I think the part where it says they're SLICING UP THE FRICKIN' GUY'S BRAIN might give it away.

Re:

[KingAlanI]

This just in: Psychological case study Henry Gustav Molaison is still dead.

Exactly how long?

[Alcohol Fueled]

Summary: "... is expected to last approximately 30 hours."
Then from the page: "We are going to cut through the entire brain over the next 50 hours."

Glad we've got our time frames together.

Re:Exactly how long?

[camperdave]

The difference is the commercials.

Is that headline correct?

[unitron]

So is this guy's name H.M. Brain?

Re:

[JustNiz]

No. Its Abe Normal.

Re:

[unitron]

Instead of actually sending me a new keyboard, just transfer the money into my account and I'll pick one up locally.

Organ donation

[Anonymous Coward]

So I can't help but wonder how they got HM to consent to organ donation ? Did they ask him everyday until his death ? Or perhaps he got "organ donor" tattooed on his body ?

Re:

[buswolley]

Yeah good question. I suspect that they might have tricked him by a process of implicit motor learning.

Re:Organ donation

[Tynin]

I cannot find the article that goes over it, but I recall reading about him some time ago. During the interview he was quite aware of his condition, after all he remembers everything that happened prior to his surgery to help control his seizures. He basically said that he wanted to help the doctors better understand his condition in any way that could be beneficial because that information could help other people. Wish I could find the article, as I do believe he had enough understanding and did give permission.

Re:

[noidentity]

I bet the MAFIAA would have hated this guy. Every day he could listen to the same song or watch the same movie, never paying them more then the one-time cost to purchase it. Imagine the laws they would have crafted to deal with people like him who rob them of all that profit!

Necessary?

[seven of five]

With MRI, CAT scans, etc, is this ghoulish exercise really necessary anymore?

Re:

[John Hasler]

Not ghoulish: merely clinical. And yes, it is necessary. No non-invasive technology can resolve the neurons.

Re:

[syousef]

With MRI, CAT scans, etc, is this ghoulish exercise really necessary anymore?

Medical imaging is fantastic technology but it does not replace what you can see when you actually cut something up and take away layers of other material between you and the object being observed

We still have to do painful biopses on live patients too, despite all the medical imaging technology. My father in law's just had 20 pieces of his prostate taken out through his rectum. (Given the entry/exit path, start you on strong anti-

Re:Necessary?

[Pronkzilla]

I am a pathology resident who has done about ten autopsies and from my limited experience I can say that this practice is absolutely necessary. The reasoning behind sectioning the brain is to obtain tissue for histologic examination (i.e. under a microscope). This is done to correlate clinical or radiologic findings with actual disease processes. A simple example would be a case of a small brain hemorrhage, where the radiologist thinks he/she sees some bleeding in a certain area of the brain. On autopsy, we can slice up the brain, take sections to be processed and placed on a glass slide, and actually look at the brain microscopically to confirm that there was indeed hemorrhage in the area of brain suspected by the radiologist. Also, brain sectioning/microscopic evaluation can reveal lesions or abnormalities that are not visible to the radiologist (i.e. early Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, etc.)

Re:

[complete loony]

... not that this helps the patient very much.

Re:

[tsalmark]

no, but it could help future thousands.

Re:

[Tynin]

No, but it might help the next patient.

Re:

[RobVB]

You damn youngsters don't even know how to have some fun anymore...

Re:

[jeffb (2.718)]

Yes, this. Our lab is pushing the limits of conventional MRI (as opposed to the nanoscale "MRI" that's been in the news lately), maximizing resolution in a volume just large enough to hold a rodent brain. We can get down to 20 microns routinely, and 10 microns with heroic efforts; there's a pretty hard limit at 5 microns. There are good reasons to believe that we'll never be able to generate an MRI volume that resolves individual synapses and axons. For that, you need optical histology.

CT can in princip

Obligatory quote

[Locke2005]

"Mmmmm.... Brains! (drool)" -- Zombie Homer Simpson

Nice headline

[aylons]

Brain of Patient H.M. Being Sliced, Streamed Live At first, I understood that his brain was sliced and streamed (just like pasta) while he was still alive. It only took a second, but was an indeed creepy thought.

needs Memento tag

[ChrisCampbell47]

This post needs to be tagged with "Memento".

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0209144/ [imdb.com]

Paraffin slices are very useful

[damn_registrars]

If they are making paraffin (yes as in wax) slices of the brain, it could lead to some very useful research. One research application in particular that has been of great value is tissue MALDI mass spectrometry. Essentially, from a wax section we can now evaluate protein expression across different cell types. When looking at unusual tissue, the ability to study differential protein expression is a fundamental technique to understanding what makes the tissue different.

So for those who are wondering what the application of this is, there are many.

Something screwy w Firefox...

[IonOtter]

Tried to view it at work with Firefox, and it crashed. Hard. It didn't even pull up the crash reporter. Tried it twice, same results.

Viewed it just fine in MSIE, though. Might be something in my addons...

*Firefox Gecko/20091102 Firefox/3.5.5
*NoScript 1.9.9.18
*AdBlock Plus 1.1.1

Re:

[XanC]

Same thing happens to me every time I do a Wolfram Alpha search.

Sliced Live

[Barbarian]

For a second I thought this would be about some cruel and unusual punishment in a third-world country.

Re:

[joocemann]

It is working for me. This is pretty awesome looking

Are you...

[Frosty Piss]

Just tried to connect and get a timeout error...

Are you mocking H. M. [wikipedia.org]?

Re:

[Brett Buck]

Slashdot- fucking up wet dreams since 1997!

Re:

[richardkelleher]

I'm sorry, I'm not getting the reference. Right over my head. Completely clueless! Some context to the comment maybe? Three what?

Re:

[CannonballHead]

Primarily an NFL reference I guess. 3 timeouts per half (per team), IIRC. :)

Re:

[richardkelleher]

You would think that, having been born in this country and living here for 53 years I would get a football reference, but noooooo. Baseball maybe, but I've never paid much attention to football. Go figure. :)

Re:

[Jeremiah Cornelius]

H.M.?! Her Majesty?!

Well, I knew she was a bit stiff, but frozen brain?

Re:

[bickerdyke]

oh. *that* kind of football

Re:

[daeley]

Yea you know, the brainless one that is actually fun to play?

Rugby? ;)

Re:

[socceroos]

Rugby Union to be specific. ;)

Re:

[Kozar_The_Malignant]

Aussie Rules.

Re:

[Evil Shabazz]

Yeah, that 5-10s of action for every 45s off the game clock sure is riveting.

Re:

[simcop2387]

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:

[SpaceLifeForm]

They must require the same server to do the slicing.

It now says:

We are going to cut through the entire brain over the next 50 hours.

Re:

[timeOday]

The video is working just fine for me. Besides, there really isn't a "legitimate" audience for this; you can't do any brain science by watching the video, its value is purely as a curiosity whether you're a brain surgeon.

Re:Limited bandwidth and limited prospective audia

[ceoyoyo]

It's a curiosity. There isn't really a "legitimate audience." Rest assured, the resulting slides, which are actually of interest scientifically, will be available via more than a live webcast.