Extracting Brains ... For Science

A year and a half ago, neuroscientist Kamilla Souza got the call she'd been waiting for: A baby humpback whale had died just offshore. She wanted its brain. That's because scientists know little about the brains of whales and dolphins off the Central and South American coasts. Studying them, like Kamilla is doing, can teach scientists about the inner workings of these animals — about their behavior and how they're adapted to living underwater. So, she has to race against time to save the brains. The heat in this area of Brazil accelerates decomposition. Minutes matter. This episode was reported by Ari Daniel. Read more https://www.npr.org/2025/02/15/nx-s1-5258496/scientist-inspires-whale-dolphin-brain-research-brazilof Ari's reporting. Curious about other biology research happening around the world? Let us know by emailing [email protected] mailto:[email protected]! See pcm.adswizz.com https://pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences. NPR Privacy Policy https://www.npr.org/about-npr/179878450/privacy-policy

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• 0:00Speaker 00

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• 0:16Regina Barber?

  You're listening to Short Wave from NPR. Hey, Short Wavers. Regina Barber here to tell you about a treasure hunt.

• 0:25Speaker 02

  Though not the treasure you may be expecting.

• 0:28Regina Barber?

  Yeah, almost certainly not. Ari Daniel, you're a science reporter, and you're bringing us the story which took place like a year and a half ago, right?

• 0:35Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 0:36Regina Barber?

  OK, so set the scene for us.

• 0:38Speaker 02

  Right, OK. So that's when this Brazilian neuroscientist I met named Camila Souza gets the call she's been waiting for. A baby humpback whale is adrift just offshore in the waters off southeastern Brazil. It's just dying, and she wants its brain.

• 0:56Speaker 03

  It's like Alice in Wonderland. Give me the hat.

• 1:01Regina Barber?

  I went from like sad to like now I'm just surprised. She wants the brain? What?

• 1:07Speaker 02

  I know, I know. But there are some really important reasons to study the brains of whales and dolphins, and I will get to that.

• 1:14Regina Barber?

  OK, I trust you.

• 1:15Speaker 02

  Great, I'm glad. But first, let me finish telling you what happened to that baby humpback.

• 1:19Regina Barber?

  OK, deal.

• 1:20Speaker 02

  By the time Camila and her colleagues arrive on the scene by boat, the whale has washed ashore on a tiny island, and they have a problem. They can only get so close without running aground.

• 1:32Speaker 03

  You look at the situation and you say, OK, I need it. I'll get this one no matter what. And then I didn't have time to think. You just have to go.

• 1:42Speaker 02

  So Camila grabs her scalpel and saw and swims to shore.

• 1:46Regina Barber?

  She swims?

• 1:47Speaker 02

  She swims. She really wants that brain.

• 1:51Regina Barber?

  Wow.

• 1:51Speaker 02

  She gets to the beach, and she's totally soaked. But she whips out her tools, and after a couple of hours, she manages to extract the fresh, intact brain from the recently deceased whale.

• 2:03Regina Barber?

  Whoa.

• 2:03Speaker 02

  She is elated.

• 2:06Speaker 03

  It was the first extraction of a whale brain here in Brazil.

• 2:09Speaker 02

  Camila brings it back to her lab, where it joins the ranks of what she says has become the largest collection of whale and dolphin brains in all of Latin America.

• 2:22Regina Barber?

  So today on the show, why this early-career neuroscientist is going to all the trouble of getting her hands on so many whale and dolphin brains.

• 2:30Speaker 02

  And how she's recruiting a new generation of Brazilian researchers to roll up their sleeves to join her.

• 2:36Regina Barber?

  I'm Regina Barber.

• 2:37Speaker 02

  I'm Ari Daniel.

• 2:38Regina Barber?

  And you're listening to Short Wave, the science podcast from NPR.

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• 4:02Regina Barber?

  OK, Ari, now that we're back, clear something up for me. Like, does Camila have to swim to shore every time she wants a brain?

• 4:09Speaker 02

  No. Usually, the brains come to her at the Orca Institute. That was where I met up with Camila in mid-December. She was bedecked in marine mammal jewelry, dolphin earrings, a whale bracelet. You get the idea.

• 4:23Regina Barber?

  That's adorable.

• 4:23Speaker 03

  Because people know that I like dolphins.

• 4:26Speaker 02

  The Orca Institute is a conservation organization outside of Vitoria in southeastern Brazil, where, before recently taking time off for a short fellowship at Oxford, Camila worked as the scientific director.

• 4:40Speaker 02

  The morning I was there, a van had just pulled in. So there's a van with a special delivery?

• 4:45Speaker 03

  I would say yes. It's a dolphin that stranded in the beach.

• 4:50Speaker 02

  The Orca Institute tends to any marine mammal that strands itself along its section of the coast and either rehabilitates and returns it to the water if it's alive, or, as is the case with this recently deceased Guyana dolphin being hoisted into the air, brings it back to their facility to figure out what might have gone wrong.

• 5:10Speaker 03

  We are going to analyze all the organs of this animal and to investigate the cause of the death.

• 5:16Speaker 02

  With an eye towards preventing similar deaths in the future.

• 5:19Regina Barber?

  Ah, OK. I mean, when these dolphins and marine mammals get stranded, do the scientists know why that happens, Ari?

• 5:26Speaker 02

  Well, one of the vets told me that often the animals become entangled with fishing gear, or they suspect loud underwater noises might cause the animals to surface too quickly. The staff here rotates through a daily on-call schedule because an animal can strand pretty much any time, but for Camila, these animals are a means to an end.

• 5:46Regina Barber?

  Those brains, right?

• 5:48Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 5:49Speaker 03

  I think about the brain.

• 5:51Speaker 02

  You think about the brain. It's something she's been fascinated by ever since she was little, and here's why she thinks brains are so important to study.

• 5:59Regina Barber?

  See, I knew it. I knew I could trust you. We're there now.

• 6:01Speaker 02

  True to my word. Camila says there's actually very little known about the brains of whales and dolphins living in the waters off Central and South America, but mapping how those brains are wired up can teach scientists about the inner workings of these animals, about their behavior and how they're adapted to living underwater. Plus...

• 6:22Speaker 03

  Dolphins have Alzheimer's, encephalitis, meningitis, so it's an opportunity to understand diseases that can also affect humans.

• 6:33Regina Barber?

  Really? Alzheimer's? That's fascinating.

• 6:35Speaker 02

  It's still early days of confirming the disease, Regina, but yes, there have been signs of the hallmarks of Alzheimer's in certain dolphins. So for all these reasons, Camila's intent on gathering and studying the brains of cetaceans.

• 6:49Regina Barber?

  Cetaceans? Is that a word for whales and dolphins that I don't know?

• 6:53Speaker 02

  Yes, yes.

• 6:54Regina Barber?

  OK.

• 6:55Speaker 02

  And now you know it.

• 6:55Regina Barber?

  Now I do. You're teaching me so much today.

• 6:58Speaker 02

  I do what I can. So, back to Camila. She's collecting and gathering cetacean brains from this part of the world and is making real progress. She points to the 200-pound suspended Guyana dolphin, a coastal species that lives in the Atlantic, off Central and South America.

• 7:14Speaker 03

  We have a lot of studies about the behavior of this animal, but studies about the brain, we didn't have. So, we published the first brain description for this species.

• 7:25Regina Barber?

  Wow. OK, so how do they, like, study these brains? Like, what can they learn from a brain that's, like, no longer on, for lack of a better word?

• 7:34Speaker 02

  Yeah, well, a few years back, Camila and her colleagues used an MRI to describe the neuroanatomy and internal brain structure of a Guyana dolphin that washed ashore west of Rio de Janeiro, which was a real achievement.

• 7:48Regina Barber?

  Because these brains are really hard to get, right?

• 7:50Speaker 02

  Bingo. And that becomes super clear when Camila takes me to the necropsy room.

• 7:58Regina Barber?

  Oh, my goodness. What is that sound?

• 8:00Speaker 02

  That, Gina, is the sound of knives being sharpened.

• 8:05Speaker 02

  The vets are dissecting another dolphin, a female that recently stranded, and a parade of organs appears on the table before me to be measured and photographed.

• 8:14Regina Barber?

  Oh, my God. And you saw this?

• 8:16Speaker 02

  I did. I saw the heart. I saw a kidney. The uterus.

• 8:20Regina Barber?

  Wow.

• 8:21Speaker 02

  Camila brings me around to the head.

• 8:23Regina Barber?

  Oh, no.

• 8:24Speaker 03

  So, here we have the skull. There is no brain.

• 8:27Speaker 02

  OK, it's liquefied.

• 8:28Speaker 03

  Yeah, exactly. And that's the point. We need to have a fresh carcass.

• 8:33Regina Barber?

  OK, so, like, fresh as in the brain hasn't turned to goo, like, so they can still study it?

• 8:39Speaker 02

  Right. And that's a challenge in a big country like Brazil. The heat accelerates decomposition, so minutes matter, which means that sometimes Sosa has to extract the brain from an animal right on the beach and put it in preservative.

• 8:53Regina Barber?

  This all makes sense now, like why she had to like swim to that baby humpback.

• 8:56Speaker 02

  Precisely.

• 8:57Speaker 03

  It has to do with people, animals, the weather. Sometimes it's raining.

• 9:04Speaker 02

  But Camila's relentless, Daniela Telles told me. Daniela is one of the Orca Institute vets.

• 9:09Speaker 03

  She can find the treasure that it's hidden inside all of this flesh and carcass and smell and all. She finds the brain and all and studies it and it's amazing.

• 9:20Speaker 02

  So whenever the conditions do conspire in her favor, Camila gets herself another brain.

• 9:26Regina Barber?

  I mean, I love the way they talk about these brains, but did you actually get to see one?

• 9:30Speaker 02

  I did. What do you think I've been building up to, Gina?

• 9:34Regina Barber?

  I don't know. I'm in suspense.

• 9:37Speaker 02

  I follow her next door to her office. This is definitely a refrigerator filled with brains. In this fridge alone, she's got a brain from a pygmy sperm whale, various dolphin species, and more. She lifts a brain out of the largest plastic container. It's from that baby humpback she swam ashore to dissect, and it's twice the size of a human brain.

• 10:01Speaker 03

  So this brain is huge. I need the two hands to hold this brain.

• 10:07Speaker 02

  Wow.

• 10:08Regina Barber?

  Wow.

• 10:09Speaker 02

  There before me is arguably the convoluted essence of a humpback whale, the thing that lets it swim and sing and so much more.

• 10:19Regina Barber?

  Ari, I really like this, this story, like it's fascinating, but it's also like kind of gross. And like Camila, she's so cool. I mean, she's early in her career. Like, what is she planning to do next? Like, where is she gonna go?

• 10:30Speaker 02

  Well, Camila says she'd likely be able to work abroad. She's got all this expertise. She has access to these understudied species. She's even done stints abroad, but there's only one place she wants to be, and that's Brazil.

• 10:43Speaker 03

  I'm here because I want, I want to do this kind of research here. I want to bring this knowledge to Brazil. I want to inspire Brazilian people to do something new, to do something special.

• 10:57Speaker 02

  People like Hitor Minning, a PhD student in the lab who's developing a fancy tool to model the cetacean brain in 3D. He too wants to contribute to the field from Brazil.

• 11:10Speaker 06

  We don't have to always rely on other countries. We can actually do it on our own and show the world that we can actually do good science. Being able to be a scientist in Brazil, that's very different. It feels like part of me.

• 11:28Regina Barber?

  Oh.

• 11:30Speaker 02

  My last stop on my trip is a nearby stretch of beach. Camila looks out at the ocean and she considers the trajectory that brought her to this moment.

• 11:40Speaker 03

  I think that I did the right thing because I'm super happy with my work and with the things that I'm doing for my country and for me as a researcher.

• 11:55Speaker 02

  Camila says that little girl she used to be would be happy.

• 11:59Regina Barber?

  Oh, I just love the way she talks about her work. It's so joy-filled. It's like, sounds like it's healing her inner child.

• 12:06Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 12:07Regina Barber?

  Ari, thank you so much for this lovely story about cetacean brains, right?

• 12:12Speaker 02

  You got it, cetacean brains. Of course, my pleasure, Gina.

• 12:15Regina Barber?

  Thank you. New word.

• 12:19Regina Barber?

  For all you listening, if you liked this episode, make sure you never miss a new one by following us on whichever podcasting platform you're listening from. And if you have a science question you'd like us to investigate, send us an email at [email protected].

• 12:34Regina Barber?

  This episode was produced by Hannah Chin and edited by showrunner Rebecca Ramirez. Tyler Jones checked the facts. Beth Donovan is our senior director and Colin Campbell is our senior vice president of podcasting strategy. I'm Regina Barber. Thank you for listening to Short Wave, the science podcast from NPR.

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