can't take the brain out of my brain.

We are now in our neuroanatomy module and honestly, I’m anxious with our present and upcoming topics because apparently, the entire brain thing is not easy. Even Dr. Julius Caesar (the best dissector of his batch, an anatomist, and one of our highly-esteemed instructors) said that it’s the most difficult topic for him when he was in his first year. Huhu. Having taken the initial topics meninges, venous sinuses, CSF pathway, cerebrum, midbrain and diencephalon make me quite confident that I have fair chance of surviving neuro but when Dr. Ramos started with the complex, cranial hemorrhaging ascending and descending motor and sensory pathways (these explains how the messages from our receptors reaches the corresponding corteses in the brain and how it induce the appropriate reflexes/movements) hours ago, I realized that I was wrong to conclude early. Hehe. Pathways can be really quite confusing and demanding  especially that there is no other option but to memorize (and memorize by heart) loads of ganglia, neurons, etc. because in the brain, all is connected, all has function and all is complementary to each other and essential even the smallest fiber of a neuron!

Anyway, it was on the afternoon session, during our gross lab that I was suddenly shaken by the beauty of the man’s brain. Though it’s not my first time to see and touch one, it’s the first time that I appreciate it and pore over without pressure of an oral exam. Getting a grip of a real brain for hours is really captivating and to realize that it’s that mass of matter and vasculatures that controls and makes us humans is even more enthralling. That moment, all confusion and complications were changed into fascination. I’m just so mesmerized, that after getting familiarized with its sulci, gyri and other structures, I couldn't help but to keep on poking it while saying to myself “God, ang galing mo talaga!” I just can't imagine how He constituted all of those; component and functions in that mass of fibers, white and gray matter in such a way that it works in complete harmony so that we can feel, perceive, realize and act. He is definitely omnipotent and omniscient.

I would like to keep the brains beside me during the rest of the session but the stimuli from the formalin elicited synapses and sent messages to my olfactory center, so I stopped poking it after almost three hours. Haha. Even though studying it triggers migraine, I wouldn't stop admiring one of God’s unparalleled masterpieces—the human brain. It’s a pity we weren't allowed to take one home.