Portraits of the Mind: Visualizing the Brain

"Pickled in a jar or quivering under the anatomist's blade, the brain reveals very little of itself. In order to understand the organ, generations of scientists have pioneered increasingly sophisticated ways of examining it -- first by feeling its weight, shape, and color, then by cutting into it, magnifying its daunting muddle of cells, initially without much to tell them apart. And as they investigated the form and workings of the brain, neuroscientists have invented new ways of seeing. Our modern perspective relies entirely on technologies developed, or adapted, to scrutinize it -- chemical stains, state-of-the-art genetics, x-rays, MRIs, protein tagging. The resulting data reveal subtle variations in shape, intensity, and color, enabling scientists to pinpoint exactly what they seek to unveil and ignore the surrounding clutter."

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Het hele artikel (van Carl Schoonover en Michelle Legro) plus veel interessante afbeeldingen op de site van The Atlantic.