A CT scan of a 319-million-year-old fossilized fish skull has led to the discovery of the oldest known specimen of a well-preserved vertebrate brain.
The oldest skull fossil in the world belonging to the extinct Coccocephalus wildi. This one was found in a coal mine in England over a century ago.
The fossil is the only known specimen of the fish speciesso scientists from the University of Michigan in the US and the University of Birmingham in the UK used the non-destructive imaging technique of computed tomography (CT) to look inside your skull and examine your interior body structure.
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University of Michigan
The distinct 3D object had a clearly defined structure with features found in vertebrate brains: It was bilaterally symmetrical, contained hollow spaces similar in appearance to ventricles, and had filaments that extended and resembled cranial nerves.
Preservation of the brain of 319 million years
Unlike bones and teeth, scientists rarely find brain tissue that is softpreserved in vertebrate fossils.
However, one study noted that the fish’s brain was perfectly preserved. While invertebrate brains have been found up to 500 million years old, they are all flattened. This It is the first three-dimensional fossil brain to be found in an exceptional state.
The skull was found in layers of soapstone. According to specialists, low oxygen concentration, rapid burial by fine-grained sediment, and a very compact and protective braincase played key roles in brain preservation.
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republica.com
The brain that marked a before and after
The braincase created a chemical microenvironment around the closed brain that helped replace its soft tissue with a dense mineral that maintained the fine details of the brain’s 3D structures.
The next steps for scientists will be to discover how features as delicate as the brain can be preserved for hundreds of millions of years.
Source: Ambito
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