Virtual Memories

This brain is the source of great knowledge. But its owner woke up every day with no idea how important he was. It belonged to Henry Molaison, who lost his ability to make new memories after he had brain surgery in 1953 to cure his epilepsy. After that, any new experience left his brain within minutes. He was a willing subject of study throughout his life (perhaps never tiring of the novelty of research), and much of our knowledge about how and where the brain forms and stores memories came from him. When he died, he donated his brain to science. It was meticulously dissected, and has now been digitally reconstructed. The 3D virtual model has been made available for free to researchers who can inspect his unique mind in greater detail than ever before, meaning that the work can continue, and ensuring that Henry Molaison will never be forgotten.

Written by Anthony Lewis

Anthony Lewis

Writer

Ant was the web editor in the early days of BPoD, and has since worked with the UK’s top science organisations as a writer and multimedia producer. He now splits his time between freelance work and managing multimedia at The Lancet.

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• Image courtesy of Jacopo Annese and colleagues
• The Brain Observatory, San Diego
• Originally published under a Creative Commons Licence (BY-NC-ND 3.0)
• Research published in Nature Communications, January 2014