MILAN.- BRAIN. The brain, instructions for use is a great exhibition of a scientific nature that reveals also to a non specialized public the mechanisms that regulate our perceptions, emotions, opinions and feelings: a new and interactive perspective making the best possible use of technology to explain to people and get them involved.

The exhibition, which is on view from the 18th October 2013 to the 13th April 2014 in Milan, in the halls of the Museo di Storia Naturale, the most important museum of natural history in Italy and one among the most prominent in Europe, is promoted and produced by the Comune di Milano-Cultura, Codice. Idee per la cultura, 24 ORE Cultura – Gruppo 24 ORE and is the result of a collaboration between the Museo di Storia Naturale di Milano and the American Museum of Natural History of New York.

The exhibition is curated by Rob DeSalle, curator in the Division of invertebrate zoology, who conducts research at the Sackler Institute for Comparative Genomics of the American Museum of Natural History with the collaboration of Margaret Zellner, associated researcher at the Rockefeller University, and Joy Hirsch, director of the Program for Imaging and Cognitive Sciences (PICS) at Columbia University. The Italian adaptation is curated by Giorgio Racagni and Monica DiLuca, Professors of Pharmacology at the Department of Pharmacological and Biomolecular sciences of the Università degli Studi of Milan.

“Brain is a fascinating and stimulating exhibition, because the technical and multimedia apparatus that represents the contents and spreads scientific information has a strong visual and emotional impact, devised specifically to arouse the involvement and enthusiasm not only of children, but also of adults – commented Filippo del Corno, councillor responsible for Culture, who added: - Designed and curated by important experts, with an approach that is rigorous as much as it is attentive to accessibility and interactivity, Brain is a perfect exhibition to represent the scientific ‘side’ of the ‘American Autumn’, the Milanese season that in 2013 is dedicated to American culture, art and traditions, in the same year in which the United States of America celebrate the “Year of Italian Culture in America”.

Brain. The brain, instructions for use brings visitors up to date on the latest neuroscientific discoveries, highlighting the brain’s surprising ability to reconfigure itself in response to experience, disability, or trauma, besides showing the new technologies that researchers use to study this organ and to find cures for pathologies such as Alzheimer, Parkinson and mood disorders.

The visitor is accompanied in the discovery of the amazing tool that is the brain and of the huge potential and capacities that it offers, by a fascinating sensorial setup with exhibits, installations, games and films: a two metre tall homunculus shows how much part of the brain is dedicated to the sense of touch; a multimedia video piece in which a clear resin brain shows the functional areas that light up in the mind of a girl undergoing a dance test; a screen of neuronal movements revealing the way brain cells connect and communicate with each other; a model of the subcortical area of the brain - the region containing the most “ancient” parts of the brain – illustrating the way in which the brain processes language, memory and decision-making; and, for the first time in a museum, a deep-brain stimulator implant.

Brain. The brain, instructions for use is divided into seven sections:

1. Introduction. After walking past a preserved human brain, visitors step through an installation of Daniel Canogar that simulates neuron activity by using a lighting system. This piece of work - almost seven hundred kilos of electric wires hanging on a structure that extends over more than ten metres – was created by using recycled materials.

2. The introductive theatre. To acquire some basic information on the brain and on how it works. A video projection shows the activities that a girl undergoing a dance test carries out by correlating them simultaneously with the activity of certain areas of her brain.

3. The sensing brain. In this section of the exhibition, the specific areas of the brain devoted to hearing, smelling, tasting, seeing and touching will be highlighted thanks to a series of interactive experiences. An installation of the artist Devorah Sperber incites visitors to visually interpret the pieces of a visual puzzle – colours, angles, figures – to create the image of a painting that is universally known. Among the other items there is an almost two-metre tall homunculus with enlarged hands and face, to represent the brain’s management of the sense of touch; Kiki and Booba, forms that, during a famous experiment, up to 98 percent of people of different language and culture have identified as such; and a screen of neuronal movements allowing visitors to use their hands to understand how neurons communicate with each other.

4. The emotional brain. This section explores the mode through which emotions are elaborated in the brain and its evolution. A series of animal models, as well as an interactive exhibit of the construction of a brain, illustrate the brain’s evolution, by comparing parts of the human brain with those of lizards, mammals and primates. An interactive booth will stimulate visitors to explore the message transmission mode between neurons with the classical dilemma of the box of biscuits. Finally, this section presents some marvelous neuron models in dark red coloured resin, with computerized control lighting that stimulates the exchange of messages between neurotransmitters.

5. The thinking brain. In this section intelligence is represented in all its complexity as the sum of different types of intelligence. Visitors will be able to enter a “brain” by walking in a room lined with lighted fabric material representing the cortical folding (the external layers of the brain), which allows people to think, plan and imagine. Dominating the centre of the room stands the rounded sculpture of the brain’s subcortical area: 35 times larger than the real size, made in non-transparent resin and connected to the exhibits of this section, it highlights the cerebral connective links between the internal and external regions of the brain and makes functions like language, memory (short term, procedural, long term and emotional) and decision-making possible.

Language is analysed thanks to an interactive installation that shows how the capacity to pronounce some sounds with precision is more difficult if brain connections are not created at an early stage of life. Interactive exhibits connected to memory include the game of number sequences, a game that aims to prove that, to remember long number sequences, it is useful to divide these in small groups; drawing a star, an exercise that proves how practice can simplify the difficult task of drawing a form when looking in the mirror. This section also has the task of explaining the mechanisms that are responsible for the modifications and the reliability of people’s memory, as well as the importance of sleep in transferring short term remembrance to long term memory.

The executive part of the brain, the one devoted to reasoning, is explained by using two games: an exercise of concentration on colours that illustrates how the brain decides which pieces of information are relevant; and a stacking game, that requires a targeted strategy to stack bricks in the shortest possible number of moves.

6. The changing brain. This part of the exhibition examines the development of the brain during a lifetime and its incredible capacity to reorganize itself. To evoke the extraordinary speed of neuronal development in a human fetus – during the first five months, neurons develop at an average speed of half a million per minute - Canogar has created a second artistic installation, the sculpture of neuronal development: a funnel-shaped mass of copper and silver filaments. Brain development, however, does not stop at the time of birth: the brain continues to mature, by creating new connections and by eliminating those that have not been used, during all one’s life. Sometimes the brain’s plasticity will allow it, if necessary, to co-opt new areas: a blind person, for instance, uses the visual cortex to read Braille, and an interactive installation of palpable Braille allows visitors to try to use the sense of touch to read. A brain that grows old can be seriously affected by illnesses such as Alzheimer, as can be observed in a preserved damaged brain. Activity, over time, can however contribute to preserving its acumen, as highlighted by three brain-teasers developed by neuroscientists that show visitors how they can increase their grey matter.

7. The brain of the future. What we consider futuristic is actually already here: electrodes are implanted in the brain to keep epilepsy seizures under control; patients affected by Parkinson’s disease or by depression are treated with direct electrical stimulations; implants are made to allow deaf people to hear and blind people to see, and brain-computer interfaces are being developed to help people affected by paralysis to operate computer controlled devices and maybe even recover motor functions. Finally, people will have the possibility to relax by sinking into the biomorphic seats of the brain lounge to experience the surprising conclusion of the exhibition: floating projections of magnetic resonance images that tell the story of four persons: a United Nations interpreter incessantly switching from Arabic to English, a musician of classical music playing; a rock star performing and a basketball player moving on the court in response to game actions. By observing the magnetic resonance images, visitors are able to sense how their own brain may function in similar situations.