Aussie discovers a part of the brain that allows you to play the piano

Australian scientists have just announced the discovery of a region of the brain still unknown: an unexplored country, living just under our skulls.

The new mapped area, which has not been seen in any other animal so far, could be responsible for extremely precise motor control – our unique ability to play the piano or perform surgery.

It's about the size of a pea and is on the back of the skull, just at the base of the brain. Its discoverer, the professor of Neutra Brain Mapping, George Paxinos, has dubbed it the endorestiform core.

With 86 billion neurons, the human brain is the most complex thing we know. And he does not give up his secrets without fighting. This makes achievements as important Paxinos.

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"He found me – he looked me in the eyes for 30 years," says Paxinos.

Paxinos has spent more than 40 years using a 4B pencil to draw extremely detailed maps of the human brain by hand.

He is one of the most important Australian scientists and his brain atlases are among the most cited neuroscience publications and are used in surgery.

Its newly discovered region is integrated with a major neuronal highway that connects the spinal cord and the brain. This part of the brain is known to be involved in the way we control the movements of our limbs and our body.

Generally, human brains look a lot like monkey brains – they're just bigger. But when Paxinos looked for his new area among other animals, he could not find it. This seems to be a unique part of the human brain involved in the control of movement.

What movements can we make that monkeys can not? Maybe the endorestiform core is linked to our unique ability to move our fingers with great precision, speculates Paxinos.

"Monkeys, you do not see them playing pianos, is not it?" he says.

But Paxinos is only the cartographer: now that he has discovered the new region, it is up to the other scientists to determine what he is doing.

He has already discovered many areas, but this discovery is particularly special because it allows him to do the complete tour. 28 years ago, when he was publishing his first brainstem atlas, "I saw something unusual in this area – very striking cells".

"But I was not daring enough to say that it was a separate structure."

For the new edition, soon available, he decided to return to this curious place and study it intensively for a few days. Almost immediately, he noticed that it was really different – an island of separate cells, with their own unique connections and chemistry.

"If I could say how foolish I should have been to study it in more detail 30 years ago," he laughs.

To create a new atlas, the team cuts a brain sample horizontally into about 200 ultra-thin slices.

These are then photographed in very high resolution and blown on prints of one meter by one meter before being placed on tables around a space the size of a conference room.

The paxinos can then travel through a giant representation of the brain and retrace its neural highways and remote roads.

"He will hold his pencil and magnifying glass on each region," says Steve Kassem, a postdoc in his lab.

"He chooses a small box, then follows it through about 100 images from beginning to end, trying to follow the different structures that should exist in this area."

When he discovered this last region, as he did at each new place he mapped, he stopped and took a step back.

His long-time collaborator and co-author, Charles Watson, went to the back of their lab in Sydney and released a saxophone.

Paxinos sat down and Watson put his fingers on the brass keys and played. And, together, they enjoyed the feeling of discovery.