Editing Human brain (section)

=== Early history ===
[[File:Hieroglyph brain.svg|thumb|right|upright=1.0|[[Hieroglyph]] for the word "brain" ({{Circa|1700 BC}})]]
The [[Edwin Smith Papyrus]], an [[ancient Egypt]]ian [[medical literature|medical treatise]] written in the 17th century BC, contains the earliest recorded reference to the brain. The [[hieroglyph]] for brain, occurring eight times in this papyrus, describes the symptoms, diagnosis, and prognosis of two traumatic injuries to the head. The papyrus mentions the external surface of the brain, the effects of injury (including seizures and [[aphasia]]), the meninges, and cerebrospinal fluid.<ref name=Kandel>{{cite book | author-link=Eric R. Kandel | last=Kandel | first=ER |author2=Schwartz JH |author3=Jessell TM  | title=Principles of Neural Science | edition=4th | publisher=McGraw-Hill | location=New York | year=2000 | isbn=978-0-8385-7701-1| title-link=Principles of Neural Science }}</ref><ref name="Adelman">{{cite book |last1=Gross|first1=Charles G. |editor-first=George |editor-last=Adelman |title=Encyclopedia of neuroscience |date=1987 |publisher=Birkhäeuser |location=Boston |isbn=978-0-8176-3335-6 |pages=843–847 |edition=2. |url=http://www.princeton.edu/~cggross/Hist_Neurosci_Ency_neurosci.pdf |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130505044949/http://www.princeton.edu/~cggross/Hist_Neurosci_Ency_neurosci.pdf |archive-date=May 5, 2013  }}</ref>

In the fifth century BC, [[Alcmaeon of Croton]] in [[Magna Grecia]], first considered the brain to be the [[Sensorium|seat of the mind]].<ref name="Adelman"/> Also in the [[Fifth-century Athens|fifth century BC in Athens]], the unknown author of ''[[On the Sacred Disease]]'', a medical treatise which is part of the [[Hippocratic Corpus]] and traditionally attributed to [[Hippocrates]], believed the brain to be the seat of intelligence. [[Aristotle]], in his [[Aristotle's biology|biology]] initially believed the heart to be the seat of [[intelligence]], and saw the brain as a cooling mechanism for the blood. He reasoned that humans are more rational than the beasts because, among other reasons, they have a larger brain to cool their hot-bloodedness.<ref name=Bear>{{cite book | last=Bear | first=M.F. |author2=B.W. Connors |author3=M.A. Paradiso | title=Neuroscience: Exploring the Brain | location=Baltimore | publisher=Lippincott | year=2001 | isbn=978-0-7817-3944-3}}</ref> Aristotle did describe the meninges and distinguished between the cerebrum and cerebellum.<ref>von Staden, p.157</ref>

[[Herophilus]] of [[Chalcedon]] in the fourth and third centuries BC distinguished the cerebrum and the cerebellum, and provided the first clear description of the [[Ventricular system|ventricles]]; and with [[Erasistratus]] of [[Kea (island)|Ceos]] experimented on living brains. Their works are now mostly lost, and we know about their achievements due mostly to secondary sources. Some of their discoveries had to be re-discovered a millennium after their deaths.<ref name="Adelman"/> Anatomist physician [[Galen]] in the second century AD, during the time of the [[Roman Empire]], dissected the brains of sheep, monkeys, dogs, and pigs. He concluded that, as the cerebellum was denser than the brain, it must control the [[muscle]]s, while as the cerebrum was soft, it must be where the senses were processed. Galen further theorised that the brain functioned by movement of animal spirits through the ventricles.<ref name="Adelman"/><ref name=Bear/>

In 2025, scientists reported the discovery of a preserved human brain from the [[eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 AD]]. A man in [[Herculaneum]] was caught in a [[pyroclastic flow]], and the extremely high temperature caused the [[vitrification]] of his brain, turning it into [[glass]] and resulting in "a perfect state of preservation of the brain and its microstructures."<ref name=Giordano/> It appears to have been the only known case of a vitrified human brain.<ref name=Giordano>{{cite journal|title=Unique formation of organic glass from a human brain in the Vesuvius eruption of 79 CE|first1=Guido|last1=Giordano|first2=Alessandra|last2=Pensa|first3=Alessandro|last3=Vona|first4=Danilo|last4=Di Genova|first5=Raschid|last5=Al-Mukhadam|first6=Claudia|last6=Romano|first7=Joachim|last7=Deubener|first8=Alessandro|last8=Frontoni|first9=PierPaolo|last9=Petrone|journal=Scientific Reports|volume=15|page=5955|date=February 27, 2025|issue=1 |doi=10.1038/s41598-025-88894-5|doi-access=free|pmid=40016321 |pmc=11868551|bibcode=2025NatSR..15.5955G }}</ref><ref>{{cite journal|url=https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-025-00643-w|title=Vesuvius volcano turned this brain to glass|first=Shamini|last=Bundell|journal=Nature|date=February 27, 2025|doi=10.1038/d41586-025-00643-w|pmid=40016434 |url-access=subscription}}</ref>