• Question: How do we know the conditions of the brain if it changes consistency when the subject is dead and quantum physics states that some things are affected by actually being investigated?

    Asked by sammyg to Alex, Amy, Andy, Georgia, Ollie on 14 Jun 2011.
    • Photo: Amy Reeve

      Amy Reeve answered on 14 Jun 2011:

      Hi Sammy,

      When you are dead it takes a while for your organs to change consistency usually as they start to decay. When we get tissue from deceased patients their tissue has been fixed to prevent these changes in consistency. Fixing means that their tissue is either frozen at -80 degrees or it is put in formaldehyde and then put in paraffin wax. the was replaces all the water in the tissue and maintains its structure. When this has been done the brain is preserved and we can then study cells and proteins within it. 🙂

    • Photo: Andy MacLeod

      Andy MacLeod answered on 14 Jun 2011:

      Hi sammyg. I think Amy’s managed to explain well how we can observe brains after people have died. I’ll try and tackle the other bit.

      From what I’ve read about quantum physics, the observer effect you’re talking about is only of great importance at the subatomic level – to “see” an electron you need to at least bounce a photon off it. At that level, the energy of the photon will interact with the electron, so it will affect the observation. I don’t think these kind of effects are so important at the macroscopic scale, when we’re looking at whole organs like the brain.

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