Butterfly...

..or coronal slice of prefrontal cortex?
You be the judge.

 

Bregma +4.7, perhaps? Olfactory bulb before the white matter starts connecting the hemispheres...

 (Image borrowed from Masini CV et al (2010). Accessory and main olfactory systems influences on predator odor-induced behavioral and endocrine stress responses in rats. Behavioural Brain Research, 207, 70-77.

Puppy dog...

                                     

or caudal visual cortex and midbrain? Bregma -6.8, or perhaps -7.3...

(Image borrowed from Nitz DA & Mcnaughton BL. (1999). Hippocampal EEG and unit activity responses to modulation of serotonergic median raphe neurons in the freely behaving rat. Learning & Memory, 6, 153-67.)



Wishing the pictures of the Paxinos and Watson rat brain atlas were not copyright protected, but still wanting to get my point across. I see brain shapes everywhere!

Brains are everywhere

Brains are everywhere. And when you have spent the better part of a decade looking at brains, pictures of brains, brains under microscopes, and brains in a powerpoint presentation, you know one when you see one.

A while back, I was shopping at Central Market when I saw this enviro-friendly bag hanging in the checkout aisle and got a picture with my camera phone:

Those are supposed to be flowers. What's that you say? Looks like dendritic spines? You're probably right. Ramon y Cajal would have thought so. Here's proof:

Above: Drawings of dendritic spines, by Ramon y Cajal which I found on the IBRO website as part of the history of neuroscience.

If I had been in my right mind, I would have bought the bag and saved myself countless plastic grocery bags. Alas, I was too busy getting a picture with the camera on my phone, and now I wish I'd bought it at the time. Eventually, I will see one at Goodwill and snatch it up. Until then....