Beauty In Brains

Whenever I yank meat from a lobster or crack a crab claw, one thought always pops into my head: these look like giant spiders. It doesn’t stop me from eating them (delicious giant spiders), but it does make me think about arthropods. How is the spider I escort from my kitchen (with a massive paper towel buffer between us) or the stinkbug buzzing overhead related to the crustacean I welcome to my plate? What do these creatures have in common? One possibility–beautiful brains.

Don’t believe me? There’s plenty of proof in the new, 800-plus page book, Arthropod Brains: Evolution, Functional Elegance, and Historical Significance by Nicholas James Strausfeld (Harvard University Press, 2012). The book looks at the structure of arthropod brains, their similarity to mammalian brains, and tells the stories of the scientists who worked (and are still working) to figure it all out.

Strausfeld, a professor and Director of the Center for Insect Science at the University of Arizona, spans centuries telling the history of arthropod neuroanatomical discovery, beginning with the insect studies of the 17th century microscopist Robert Hooke. Hundreds of images, including drawings from the notebooks of the French naturalist Dujardin and Santiago Ramón y Cajal, described as the “founder of the neuron doctrine,” accompany the text. But for me, the highlights of the book are those beautiful slices of brain. Here’s a sampling of images, below.

Second optic chiasma between the medulla and lobula in the shore crab Hemigrapsus oregonensis. Collaboration between Nicholas James Strausfeld and Gabriella Wolf, courtesy of Nicholas James Strausfeld.

From studies of the wandering spider Cupiennius salei. Courtesy of Nicholas James Strausfeld.

Above: The hemiellipsoid body of the land hermit crab Coenobita clypeatus. Panels A-D illustrate Glgi-impregnated neurons in areas indicated in the top panel. Courtesy of Nicholas James Strausfeld.

Jacket: The central brain of a fully-grown crayfish (Procambarus clarkii) immunostained with antisera raised against various cellular components and neuropeptides to demonstrate the prominent mid-line neuropil of the “central body,” a feature evolved to various degrees in all arthropods. The preparation and confocal micrograph were made in the author’s laboratory by Gabriella Wolf, Department of Neuroscience, University of Arizona. Courtesy of Nicholas James Strausfeld.