Ferguson’s ability to remember the cities she’s lived in, jobs she’s worked and, yes, all the men she’s married, makes her very valuable to Jacopo Annese, a neuroanatomist at the University of California, San Diego. Annese is director of The Brain Observatory, a research center at UCSD where brains are sliced up, laid out on slides and then scanned into digital images, which researchers can use to visualize what a variety of brains look like. Scientists can use Annese’s images to see how diseases like Alzheimer’s physically change the brain.
Annese became well-known for his work with Henry Molaison, a famous amnesiac whose brain images will be studied by scientists across the world for insights into memory impairment.
“The Few, the Proud, the Brain Donors” (Voice of San Diego)
