“Brain: The Inside Story,” a new exhibit at The American Museum of Natural History in Manhattan, opens tomorrow, Saturday. And if you can get to see it, it looks like a fascinating, interactive presentation about state-of-the-art knowledge of the brain.
The museum itself says the exhibit will give “you a new perspective and insight into the human brain using imaginative art, vivid brain scan imaging, and thrilling interactive exhibits that will engage the whole family.”
It “features cutting-edge research, from the treating of diseases like Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s to the recent studies of more intangible aspects of the brain like the mapping of our emotional responses.”
The Star-Ledger of Newark reviewed the exhibit Friday, and quoted museum curator Robert DeSalle saying that the brain is the “most important organ, that three pounds of mush in in their head.”
http://www.nj.com/entertainment/index.ssf/2010/11/exhibit_inspires_awe_about_the.html
The entrance to the exhibit has hundreds of wires, with lights that “course through them,” as The Ledger says> The wires hang overhead, representing neurons.
There is a Brain Lounge, where you can view brain scans of the Knicks player Landry Fields and cellist Yo-Yo Ma as they play or perform.
You’ll learn that there are similarities between the brains of humans and lizards, which we both apparently inherited somewhere down the evolutionary road from fish.
There’s even an explanation about why the prairie vole is monogamous for life, part of the only 5 percent of mammals who form such exclusive bonds. The vole’s brain apparently has chemicals that bond it to its mate, including oxytocin. That’s the same chemical that is released when humans give birth, nurse or have sex.
The exhibit tracks the evolution of the human brain over 300 million years, as well as chronicling how it changes as we grow older.
“Brain: The Inside Story” will be at the museum until Aug. 14 next year.
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