Visbion IPACS Used to Help Identify Preserved Brain

Whilst washing a skull from recent excavations at Heslington in York, Rachel Cubitt, Finds Officer with the York Archaeological Trust felt something move inside and looked though the hole in the base of the skull. To her surprise she saw a yellowy object inside and her first reaction was to wonder if it could be a brain.

Rachel called her former lecturer, Dr Sonia O’Connor at Bradford University. Using endoscopy and radiography to gain images of the lumps inside the skull, Dr O’Connor was then able to clearly view the images on Visbion’s high resolution digital workstation. Microscopic examination of a sample of the material further confirmed that it was indeed the shrunken remains of the brain.

Dr O'Connor commented 'We are so lucky that at the time when Rachel called we were testing a new radiography system. Using the Visbion workstation, we were able to view the most wonderfully detailed images of the brain within seconds.'

Stefan Claesen, Visbion’s CEO said “We are delighted that our software is enabling the archaeologists to see more detail than ever before and we are sure that digital imaging will play an increasing role in archaeology in the future.”

Sonia has brought together a team of archaeological scientists from Bradford and other universities to study the remains and to find out just why brains can sometimes survive when no other soft tissues are preserved in the burial.