Martha Henson, 2012. Digital video (7 minutes)

On Wednesdays at Hammersmith Hospital in London, a few recently preserved human brains are dissected according to an international protocol and stored in a tissue bank for further research. The brains have mostly been donated by people with Parkinson’s disease or multiple sclerosis (both degenerative and incurable diseases of the central nervous system), but control samples of healthy brains are required too. This documentary is a modified version of one which appears in the exhibition, with an added commentary from the neuropathologist Steve Gentleman. It conveys the craft discipline exercised by scientists in their quest to understand these often-tragic conditions.

With thanks to the Multiple Sclerosis Society and Parkinson’s UK Tissue Bank at Imperial College London