Preserved Nerves

This image shows the tendrils (axons) of nerve cells viewed under a powerful electron microscope, revealing the fine details of these delicate structures that are a fraction of the thickness of a human hair. But this is not just any nerve cell. It’s a cell from the brain of a young man who died nearly 2000 years ago in an ancient Roman town called Herculaneum, which was destroyed when Mount Vesuvius erupted in CE79. Although the man didn’t survive the blast, the hot ash and gases from the volcano turned some of his remains into glass – a process known as vitrification – perfectly preserving the structure of cells in his brain and spinal cord. These extraordinary cells allow researchers to look back into the past to understand more about the sequence of events at Herculaneum that unfolded as the volcano erupted and gain important insights into the people who lived there.

Written by Kat Arney

Kat Arney

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Dr Kat Arney is an award-winning science writer, broadcaster and public speaker, and is the founder and Creative Director of First Create The Media.

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• Image from work by Pierpaolo Petrone and colleagues
• Dipartimento di Scienze Biomediche Avanzate, Università di Napoli Federico II, Naples, Italy
• Image originally published with a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)
• Published in PLOS ONE, October 2020