Your brain is you!

Everything you think, feel, see, hear, and do is mediated by your brain. It holds your memories, creates your dreams, lets you learn, controls your muscles, and tells your body when to eat and sleep. It's where your consciousness comes from! Pretty cool, huh? Neuroscience is the study of the brain and its interactions with the body. We (Stefanie and Erin) are neuroscience graduate students at Emory University. This website is a way for us to answer all of your neuroscience questions. You can also read questions asked by others.

Here's how it works:

Email your questions to braininfo@gmail.com. You can include your name, grade and school if you want. We'll put your question on this website along with an answer. If you really stump us, we might ask a professor! Check back often for new questions.

What color is your brain?

Your brain color doesn't have anything to do with your skin color. Everyone's brain looks almost exactly alike - we all look the same on the inside. When it's in your body, your brain has LOTS of blood flowing through it. So it's pink.

If a brain is preserved outside of the body, the outside is a sort of pale brownish grayish peach color, like this:














There are some parts of the brain that are different colors. Many of the wires, or axons, that connect brain cells are white because they have insulation on them called myelin. The insulation helps electricity travel along the axon and keeps it from zapping other axons, just like insulation on a wire in your house. So, the parts of the brain that are made mostly of axons are white. These areas are called "white matter." Here is a cross-section of the brain where you can see some white matter.















There is also a small part of the inside of the brain called the locus coeruleus which is bluish, and another small part on the inside called the substantia nigra which is dark brown. Pretty cool huh?