Notes on the Material
The stained sections are all from the Yakovlev-Haleem Collection. This collection was built by Dr. Paul Ivan Yakovlev (1894-1983), a neurologist at several hospitals and Harvard Medical School. Yakovlev began the collection in 1930 at Monson State Hospital. In 1974 he transferred the collection from Harvard to the AFIP, where it was managed by curator Mohamad Haleem until its transfer to the National Museum of Health and Medicine. In 1994 it was renamed the Yakovlev-Haleem Collection. The collection is housed at the National Museum of Health and Medicine at the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology, Walter Reed Army Medical Center, in Washington D. C. The material is available for study by researchers and educators world wide through arrangements with the collection curator, who is:
Archie Fobbs, Neuroanatomical Curator, National Museum of Health and Medicine (NMHM),Armed Forces Institute of Pathology (AFIP), 6825 16th Street NW, Bldg. 54, Room G 051, Washington, DC 20306-6000; Phone: (202) 782-3713, FAX: (202) 782-4099, E-mail: FOBBS@email.afip.osd.mil
The sections are all from "normative controls". Specimen STD-IIIA, obtained from a 20 year old male, was sectioned in the coronal plane. Specimen SP-18 is from a 36 year old male and was cut horizontally. Specimen VND-31-84 was obtained from a 23 year old female and sectioned sagittally. All brains were embedded in celloidin (a form of cellulose), and all sections were cut at 35 µm. Adjacent sections were stained with cresyl violet (a Nissl stain) to visualize cell bodies or with the Loyez stain to visualize myelinated axons.
Selected sections were scanned on an Epson Expression 10,000 XL scanner at 1200 dpi (600 dpi for fiber stains). The images were subsequently sharpened, adjusted for contrast, and color balanced. If you want to use or modify these images, please contact Georg Striedter for permission.
A low-magnification atlas for these same three brains is available at the Michigan State University Brain Biodiversity Bank.