The Creation of Adam is a fresco in the Sistine Chapel. It was painted by Michelangelo Buonarroti between 1508 and 1512 as a representation of the Biblical story from the Book of Genesis in which God the Father creates man.

In 1990 a physician named Frank Lynn Meshberger noted in the medical publication the Journal of the American Medical Association that the background figures and shapes portrayed behind the figure of God appeared to him to be an anatomically accurate picture of the human brain, including the frontal lobe, optic chiasm, brain stem, pituitary gland, and the major sulci of the cerebrum.

References

• Meshberger, Frank Lynn. "An Interpretation of Michelangelo's Creation of Adam Based on Neuroanatomy", JAMA. 1990 Oct 10; 264(14):1837-41.

• Letters in comment: JAMA. 1991 Mar 6; 265(9):1111.