Lafayette College in Easton, Pennsylvania, has been sending sheep brains to their neuroscience students by mail.
This is so the students can continue their studies at home while the school remains closed due to Covid-19.
Other colleges including Stanford and the University of Arizona have also been couriering animal organs to their students.
The Lafayette students are being guided by Luis Schettino, an associate professor of psychology and neuroscience.
Sheep brains are being used because of their architectural similarity to the human brain. According to Lafayette College website report, sheep brain structures “are in roughly the same place as those of the human brain.”
The aim of the research is to understand the relevance of the brain’s architecture on the control of behavior. And to find out how this translates into our interactions with one another.
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In this study, those interactions are specifically the acts of violence carried out by police members towards minority individuals. Such incidents have been behind recent uprisings and protests in the United States and across the world.
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“By learning the role that brain architecture plays on how humans behave, we become aware of our weaknesses,” professor Schettino said.
Maggie Ledwith, a 22-year-old student, added: “We’re using this information to draw conclusions on why people act violently, commit crimes, and how our environment may lead to biases like racism.
“Performing a dissection on a sheep’s brain at home was not something I would have foreseen myself doing. But the psychology department and neuroscience program did a great job preparing.”
The Lafayette College will also be studying rats brains while the animals navigate mazes.
Included in some of the other seemingly bizarre packages which students at other colleges have received were a pig fetus and a cow eye.
IMAGE FEATURED: Ivan Kokoulin