The laboratory sessions are an integral component of the Medical Neuroscience course. These laboratories are designed to give you hands on experience of central nervous system anatomy. The laboratories will cover material that has been presented previously in the classroom and in some cases new material. The laboratories should enable you to visualize the topography and internal organization of the brain in three dimensions.

The different chapters of the laboratory manual will guide your study of human neuroanatomy. Individual chapters of the lab manual are organized according to regions or functional systems. The laboratory manual, and your laboratory atlas, Haines, Neuroanatomy: An Atlas of Structures, Sections, and Systems, 6^th edition, should be brought to every lab session. You may find it useful to bring along your textbook because it contains many useful photomicrographs and drawings of the brain. I strongly encourage each student to read the appropriate lab manual chapter before arriving in the laboratory. Should you do so I guarantee that you will shorten the time required to complete a laboratory exercise.

Additional Atlases -- For most laboratory exercises I have attempted to refer to figures included in your Haines atlas or I have included useful figures at the back of each laboratory chapter. However, occasionally you may benefit from examining additional figures. Therefore, in the cabinet holding the laboratory specimens you will find additional atlases of the human brain. The most important of these atlases is DeArmond et al., Structure of the Human Brain. This atlas contains some structures and sections not found in your Haines atlas.

Gross brain specimens

In the neuroscience laboratory, you will find a large number of plastic buckets containing Medical Neuroscience specimens. These buckets contain whole and sectioned human brains, spinal cords, and brains with some dura or vasculature attached. These will be your laboratory specimens for the remainder of the course and you should handle them with appropriate respect and care. When not being studied, the specimens should be stored in the containers provided and covered with sufficient fluid to keep them wet at all times. The specimens are stored in 5% formalin. Before examining your specimens, you may wish to rinse your specimens in water to reduce the odor. During prolonged exposure of your brains occasionally wet them with water so that they do not dry out. If the brains do dry out, they deteriorate much more quickly.

No special instruments are required for the examination of the gross brain specimens. Unlike Gross Anatomy, the use of microforceps, scissors and other dissecting tools is discouraged as it will serve only to accelerate the flaking of tissue from your specimens and render the specimen useless for further study. Latex gloves (provided for you) and a blunt probe with which to point at structures are the only materials that you will need. Do not use your probes as dissection instruments since this also damages these delicate specimens.

Kodachrome slide sets

The finer components of the internal organization of the spinal cord, brainstem, telencephalon, and basal forebrain will be studied in the laboratory by using Kodachrome slides. Copies of Kodachrome slide sets are located in carousels in the neuroscience laboratory. The different slide sets have been labeled according to author(s) as follows:

A directory of the Kodachrome slides with identification of the levels of the spinal cord, brainstem, or forebrain that they illustrate accompanies the lab manual.

References to specific Kodachrome slides are made throughout the laboratory manual. It is not necessary that you study every slide in the Kodachrome collections however, it should be obvious that the more slides you look at the more proficient you will become with the material. You may find that it is beneficial to examine the Kodachrome slides in small study groups of 3-5 students. Projectors and carousels may be used in the lab or other empty rooms within the Center as available.

Other materials

Plastic-embedded sections of whole brains and various models are available within the laboratory. One set of plastic-embedded sections is labeled to assist you and another is unlabeled. These sections can be found on the Medical Neuroscience web site also. In order to keep track of these materials and to ensure that all students have equal access, these specimens are to remain in the laboratory at all times. Exceptions must be cleared with the instructor and your classmates.

There are three programs on the computers in the student computer lab. Neuroanatomy an Electronic Atlas is designed to be a learn and review tool. It contains sections through the human brain with identified structures. It includes a testing function to measure your retention of structures. The images are of moderate quality, but many students have found the program helpful. Microvascular Atlas of the Head and Neck reviews the vasculature of the brain in detail. It includes high quality graphics, 3D rotation and zoom capabilities. This atlas was designed for use by surgeons. Therefore, it contains more detail than you need to know for this class. However, used in conjunction with your laboratory manual and lecture notes this program can be extremely helpful for learning the major arteries and veins of the brain. Neurological Illness briefly summarizes major neurological disorders and their signs, symptoms and treatment. In addition, there are a limited number of images showing the neuropathology of various disorders.

Internet -- the Internet contains a large amount of neuroanatomical material placed on the web by different universities and laboratories. Some of the sites are excellent. Many of the sites contain self-guided tutorials, self-administered quizzes, brain images (MRI, CAT and PET) and a few contain three-dimensional images of varied quality. Although the use of the web is not a requirement of the laboratory portion of the class, I strongly encourage you to take advantage of this resource. I would welcome any comments about sites that you find particular helpful. A list of links students have found helpful in the past can be found on the Medical Neuroscience homepage.

Laboratory rules -- The following is a short list of rules that you are expected to adhere to while in the laboratory.

• The gross central nervous system specimens should not be removed from the laboratory without the instructor's permission

• Following the completion of a "wet" lab you will be expected to put the specimens back into their appropriate container, return them to the cabinet, and clean up the lab bench that you worked at.

• When working with the sectioned brains, be especially careful to keep sections in order. The person that examines the brain after you will greatly appreciate not having to figure out your "jigsaw brain puzzle".

• Please do not remove individual slides from the slide sets.
• The slide sets should not be removed from the classrooms without the instructor's permission.