Psychology

Mr Scott meets his brain!

Researchers team up with the National Museum of Scotland to build a model of Mr Scott’s brain.

Published on Fri, Jul 8th 2016, 16:35

National Museum of Scotland re-open their science galleries

Mr Scott meets his brain

The National Museum of Scotland re-opened their science galleries on 8th July, featuring a very special new exhibit: two amazing models of a human brain.

The brain belongs to Mr John Scott, a member of the Lothian Birth Cohort. The Lothian Birth Cohort is a long-term study of how our brains age, carried out by scientists in the Centre for Cognitive Ageing and Cognitive Epidemiology (CCACE) in Edinburgh’s Psychology department.

For this project, researchers teamed up with the National Museum of Scotland to build a model of Mr Scott’s brain, based on brain scan data gathered by the Lothian Birth Cohort team. They wanted to find a way of showing how far medical imaging has come, while showing people what the brain looks like without using a computer.

The team used a 3d printer to produce a model of the outside of Mr Scott’s cortex – all based on his real brain scan data. To represent the internal white matter, or brain connections, they got in touch with a company who laser etched the white matter into crystal blocks. As far as we know, this is the first time anyone has represented white matter in this way.

Earlier this year, CCACE researchers filmed the moment that Mr Scott met his brain – watch his reactions.

Further information

Centre for Cognitive Ageing and Cognitive Epidemiology

Lothian Birth Cohort

National Museum of Scotland curator’s blog