Leonardo da Vinci on the Brain and Eye

Leonardo Da Vinci had a deep interest in the structure and function of the body. His drawings are the oldest surviving naturalistic depictions of human anatomy. This article examines seven of his drawings of the nervous system. In the earlier ones, he is almost totally bound by medieval tradition. Later, his drawings become more closely tied to his own dissections, and he invents new ways of representing the results of anatomical investigation. NEUROSCIENTIST 3:347–354, 1997