“You ever open a bag of chips, and it all explodes?” Assistant Professor Joseph Harris asked as he attempted to open a bag of sheep brains.
Fortunately for everyone at Nu Rho Psi x Neuroscience Club’s first-ever competitive sheep brain dissection, an event called Spook N Slice, the brains did not do the same. Instead, the sheep brains were passed out in pairs, so students could take up the challenge of finding and removing the hippocampus cleanly.
Despite the tough competition and it being her first time dissecting a brain, senior psychology major Alexis Oliver was half of the first-place duo. Oliver claimed her success was due to exclusively making small cuts and her partner’s expertise.
“I think we did really, really well, but I was also paired up with someone who is in neuroscience,” Oliver said. “She helped me a lot, because the brain structure is confusing, especially since we didn’t have a very defined brain.”
Oliver was surprised that dissecting the brain was not as disturbing as she expected it to be.
“I thought I would have been really grossed out,” Oliver said. “It cut — I hate to compare it to this — but like butter.”
Harris confirmed that it would have been a natural and expected reaction if Oliver had been grossed out.
“People handled it really well,” Harris, the chapter advisor of Nu Rho Psi, said. “I think that sometimes there’s just this automatic reaction … light-headed, feeling faint, nauseous, etcetera. I think maybe something similar can kick in when a person’s working with a biological specimen.”
Morals may be another reason people are hesitant to work with the brains, which is why Harris mentioned respecting the animal at the beginning of the lesson.
“We felt that it was arguably ethical to have multiple brains being dissected in this way because … they’re not being killed for this purpose,” Harris said. “When the sheep die, they’re harvested for their organs for various purposes, and one of them is for medical education.”
Just like the brain, though, some of the most interesting parts of Spook N Slice need to be dug deeper into to be found.
The goal of the event intentionally paralleled the surgery of Patient H.M., who suffered from the inability to form new memories because his hippocampus was removed in an attempt to stop his epilepsy. He is one of the most notorious figures in neuroscience, as he dedicated his life to studies and tests.
“They did not know that it was very, very important for consolidation of memory,” Harris said. “If he learned new information, he would forget it in like 30 to 45 seconds.”
The budget allowed the event to have several additional items, such as new knives, gloves and masks. Goody baskets and t-shirts were also provided for the top two teams.
“Dr. Harris, he split the cost for the supplies,” Morgan White said, the president of the group. “The brains came out of our fundraiser funds that we had from years prior, so it really wasn’t that expensive of an event to have, but I think it came out really nicely.”
White, a junior psychology major, hopes to hold the event again in the future, with some adjustments due to its popularity.
“The sign-up sheet got filled really fast, actually,” White said. “I think just making it a larger scale event [would be good] because we seem like we have a lot of interest.”
Nu Rho Psi x Neuroscience Club’s next event will be a career panel collaboration with the psychology club at the Smith Career Center on Nov. 18. More information can be found on its Instagram.
