Largest collection of preserved human brains in Belgium

a. Belgium

b. Sweden

c. Iceland

d. Finland

 

A collection in the psychiatric hospital of Duffel in north Belgium contains 3000 preserved/pickled brains, the largest such to date.

British neuropathologist John Corsellis collected and conserved the brains over 40 years between 1951 and the middle of the nineties

• The collection is now reached Duffel; it is the largest brain collection available.


• One of the main advantages of conducting research on brains from this era is that they are not impacted by certain medications that did not exist in that time.


• Illness in its purest form can now be investigated.


• Corsellis collection was kept in bell jars and Tupperware tubs in a musty psychiatric hospital in southeastern England, a collection taken from the mentally ill, epileptics, people with Alzheimer's and even boxers.


• The original Corsellis collection numbered around 8,500 but the Belgian doctors have mainly taken those that relate to depression and schizophrenia.


• Each preserved brain comes with its own medical file till the death of the patient.


• The brains could uncover new discoveries in biological psychiatry science.


• Brains are generally the most well protected organ in the human body and therefore difficult to get to.


• Research conducted on living patients is limited by technology, explains Morrens. MRI scans cannot identify, for example, what kind of proteins or enzymes are activated by illness.

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