The world’s smallest brain and a rare medieval manuscript depicting a human brain are part of a new exhibition on the hidden world of the mind.

Brains: The Mind as Matter explores what humans have done to brains in the name of medical intervention, scientific inquiry, cultural meaning and technological change.

Part of the brain of infamous body-snatcher William Burke forms part of the collection which is on display at the Museum of Science and Industry (Mosi) in Manchester.

Burke was hanged in 1829 for a series of murders in Edinburgh with partner in crime William Hare to supply bodies to anatomist Robert Knox for money.

A model of Einstein’s brain is included in the exhibition and there is footage of the world’s smallest known brain – the nematode worm C.elegans, a 1mm-long worm which has just 302 neurons compared to the estimated 86 billion neurons of a human brain. It is the only brain to be fully mapped by scientists.

Itr will be the first time that On the Body and Soul, an anonymous manuscript written in 1495, has gone on public display in Britain, loaned by the University of Manchester for the exhibition.

Brains curator Marius Kwint said: “The brain is the subject of major international efforts to grapple with its unimaginable complexity, and to understand the way that it provides for our behaviour, memory and consciousness.”

The exhibits feature alongside contemporary artworks, specimens, artefacts and film footage. The exhibition runs from today until January 4 at Mosi. (PA)