Neuroanatomy

After breakfast this morning, I went on a short walk with the abbot of the monastery and two other monks.  We walked from the dining hall up a hill to a place with multiple stupas.  The abbot described some of the projects and buildings going up at the monastery.  The monastery is a very peaceful, calm place, away from the hustle and bustle of a city.  It is also very quiet, except for the sound of birds, and the occasional barking dog.

Class today started with a discussion of the external anatomy of the brain.  We also talked about brain dominance and laterality.  As a demonstration, the monks determined whether they were right or left handed, footed, eyed and eared.  The data came out as expected:  about 10% of the monks were left handed and left footed, and about half were left eyed and left eared.  The monks commented that it was difficult to determine whether they preferred to use their right or left ear and we discussed the possible reasons for our findings.

After tea, we moved on to the parts of the brain including the cerebral cortex, cerebellum, and brainstem. To reinforce these concepts, we built brain hats.  All of the monks took their time as they colored their brain hats and taped them together.  And many of the monks wore their brain hats to tea and during afternoon lessons.