MetroNews: Columbia University neuroscientist explains studying the brain
CHARLESTON, W.Va. — Dr. Carl Schoonover has a fascination with the human brain, and has been studying how people connect memories with certain odors.
The problem: the brain is too difficult to study using lab instruments.
“It’s been very difficult look at it,” the Columbia University neuroscientist said. “If you just take a brain out of a skull, even put it under a microscope, all you’re going to see is a gray, undifferentiated mass. There’s nothing really there for you.”
Schoonover gave a lecture Thursday in Charleston to explain how humans have studied the brain dating back to second century Rome.
“It’s a story of human ingenuity, and it’s also one that yielded very beautiful results,” he said.
The lecture was part of the STEM Speaker Series organized by West Virginia Higher Education Policy Commission’s Division of Science and Research.