Incredible Images from Inside the Brain

Photograph by Eszter Blahak/Semmeleis Museum. A human skull inscribed by a 19th century practitioner of phrenology. According to this now discredited theory, bumps on the skull betray the volume of the brain areas beneath each one, and thus can be emp

Tamily Weissman, Jeff Lichtman, and Joshua Sanes (2007). Image taken from a transgenic “Brainbow” mouse that enables neuroscientists to distinguish between neighboring, densely packed neurons by illuminating them in different colors.

Thomas Deerinck and Mark Ellisman (2004). Photomicrograph of different components of the rat cerebellum, including Purkinje neurons in green, glia (non-neuronal cells) in red, and cell nuclei in blue.

Thomas Deerinck and Mark Ellisman (2009). Photomicrograph of a neuron’s cell body (top, center) and its dendrites radiating out of it, obtained with a scanning electron microscope.

Tamily Weissman, Jeff Lichtman, and Joshua Sanes (2005). Photomicrograph of a mouse hippocampus, an area of the brain critical for learning and memory.

Tamily Weissman, Jeff Lichtman, and Joshua Sanes (2007). Image taken from a transgenic "Brainbow" mouse that enables neuroscientists to distinguish between neighboring, densely packed neurons by illuminating them in different colors. This ph

Henning U. Voss and Nicholas D. Schiff (2008). Diffusion MRI image of a patient who has suffered a stroke in the thalamus. This has resulted in major disruptions to certain axon tracts, some of which are visible at the bottom of the figure. 

Alfonso Rodríguez-Baeza and Marisa Ortega-Sánchez (2009). Photomicrograph of microscopic blood vessels that carry nutrients to neurons in the brain, obtained with a scanning electron microscope. This sample, from Human cerebral cortex, s