Sheep Brain Dissection Guide

Sheep Brain Dissection Guide

This guide for learning neuroanatomy from sheep brains came about from students projects in an undergraduate Biological Psychology course at Northern Michigan University. For undergraduate courses in Biological Psychology that offer a lab component, the structures and dissection planes shown below are fairly common learning objectives, and this page serves as a helpful study tool. The images were taken from an actual student lab, and therefore were not professionally made.

Why a sheep brain for a biological psychology course? Sheep brains are traditionally used in biolgoical psychology courses. Legend has it that once when a student  approached William James to ask how to learn about the mind, James told the student to examine a sheep brain. In James' famous Principles of Psychology, he writes in a footnote "Nothing is easier than to familiarize one's self with the mammalian brain. Get a sheep's head, a small saw, chisel, scalpel and forceps (all three can best be had from a surgical-instrument maker), and unravel its parts either by the aid of a human dissecting book, such as Holden's Manual of Anatomy, or by the specific directions ad hoc given in such books as Foster and Langley's Practical Physiology (Macmillan) or Morrell's Comparative Anatomy, and Guide to Dissection (Longman & Co.)."

The images and labels were provided by Megan Lyons as part of a student project in fall 2007 (and posted online with permission)