Daily Geek Report
  • Home
  • Tech
  • Science
  • Games
  • Comics
  • Action Figures/ Toys
  • Movies
  • Books
  • Horror
  • Television
  • Music
  • Contact
    • About us
    • Amazon Disclaimer
    • DMCA / Copyrights Disclaimer
    • Privacy Policy
    • Terms and Conditions
Skip to content
Daily Geek Report
The #1 Source For All Things Geek
  • Tech
  • Science
  • Games
  • Comics
  • Action Figures/ Toys
  • Movies
  • Books
  • Horror
  • Television
  • Music
  • Contact
    • About us
    • Amazon Disclaimer
    • DMCA / Copyrights Disclaimer
    • Privacy Policy
    • Terms and Conditions

A Danish University Has The World’s Largest Collection of Human Brains in Its Basement

March 17, 2023 by admin 0 Comments

Science

Products You May Like

Ads by Amazon
Share on Facebook
Share on Twitter
Share on Pinterest
Share on LinkedIn

Countless shelves line the walls of a basement at Denmark’s University of Odense, holding what is thought to be the world’s largest collection of brains.

There are 9,479 of the organs, all removed from the corpses of mental health patients over the course of four decades until the 1980s.

Preserved in formalin in large white buckets labeled with numbers, the collection was the life’s work of prominent Danish psychiatrist Erik Stromgren.

Begun in 1945, it was a “kind of experimental research,” Jesper Vaczy Kragh, an expert in the history of psychiatry, explained to AFP.

Stromgren and his colleagues believed “maybe they could find out something about where mental illnesses were localized, or they thought they might find the answers in those brains”.

Movable shelves with numbered buckets containing human brains.
A brain collection stored in buckets is seen in the basement of the University of Southern Denmark in Odense. (Sergei Gapon/AFP)

The brains were collected after autopsies had been conducted on the bodies of people committed to psychiatric institutes across Denmark.

Neither the deceased nor their families were ever asked permission.

“These were state mental hospitals, and there were no people from the outside who were asking questions about what went on in these state institutions,” he said.

At the time, patients’ rights were not a primary concern.

On the contrary, society believed it needed to be protected from these people, the researcher from the University of Copenhagen said.

Between 1929 and 1967, the law required people committed to mental institutions to be sterilized.

Up until 1989, they had to get a special exemption in order to be allowed to marry.

Denmark considered “mentally ill” people, as they were called at the time, “a burden to society (and believed that) if we let them have children, if we let them loose… they will cause all kinds of trouble,” Vaczy Kragh said.

Back then, every Dane who died was autopsied, said pathologist Martin Wirenfeldt Nielsen, the director of the collection.

“It was just part of the culture back then, an autopsy was just another hospital procedure,” Nielsen said.

The evolution of post-mortem procedures and growing awareness of patients’ rights heralded the end of new additions to the collection in 1982.

A long and heated debate then ensued on what to do with it.

Denmark’s state ethics council ultimately ruled it should be preserved and used for scientific research.

Unlocking hidden secrets

The collection, long housed in Aarhus in western Denmark, was moved to Odense in 2018.

Research on the collection has, over the years, covered a wide range of illnesses, including dementia, schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, and depression.

A woman reaches into a industrial refrigerator to retrieve a brain fragment in a box.
Susana Aznar Kleijn takes a box with human brain fragments from a fridge in the laboratory of the Bispebjerg hospital in Copenhagen. (Sergei Gapon/AFP)

“The debate has basically settled down, and (now people) say, ‘Okay, this is very impressive and useful scientific research if you want to know more about mental disease’,” the collection’s director said.

Some of the brains belonged to people who suffered from both mental health issues and brain illnesses.

“Because many of these patients were admitted for maybe half their life, or even their entire life, they would also have had other brain diseases, such as a stroke, epilepsy or brain tumors,” he added.

Four research projects are currently using the collection.

“If it’s not used, it does no good,” says the former head of the country’s mental health association, Knud Kristensen.

“Now we have it, we should actually use it,” he said, complaining about a lack of resources to fund research.

A person holds a box containing human brain fragments.
An employee shows a box with human brain fragments in the laboratory of the Bispebjerg hospital in Copenhagen. (Sergei Gapon/AFP)

Neurobiologist Susana Aznar, a Parkinson’s expert working at a Copenhagen research hospital, is using the collection as part of her team’s research project.

She said the brains were unique in that they enable scientists to see the effects of modern treatments.

“They were not treated with the treatments that we have now,” she said.

The brains of patients nowadays may have been altered by the treatments they have received.

When Aznar’s team compares these with the brains from the collection, “we can see whether these changes could be associated with the treatments,” she said.

© Agence France-Presse

This article was originally published by Sciencealert.com. Read the original article here.
Share on Facebook
Share on Twitter
Share on Pinterest
Share on LinkedIn

Products You May Like

Ads by Amazon

Articles You May Like

Return to the Super Meat Boy Universe with Dr. Fetus’ Mean Meat Machine on PlayStation in 2023
‘Titanic’ To Set Sail For China In 25th Anniversary Rerelease
Destiny 2, Horizon Forbidden West Actor Lance Reddick Dies At 60
‘Resident Evil’ Alumni Leon Kennedy and Claire Redfield Now Available in ‘Fortnite’
Watch Caroline Polachek Perform “Welcome to My Island” on Fallon

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Search Box

Follow us on Facebook
Follow us on Twitter
Daily Geek Report

Find out what you are missing. Learn about Cryptocurrency.

Recent Articles

  • Watch Caroline Polachek Perform “Welcome to My Island” on Fallon
  • Rob Zombie Recording New ‘House of 1000 Corpses’ Commentary Track 20 Years Later; Available Next Month
  • Erik Lomis Remembered By Hollywood Colleagues And Friends: “A Part Of The Industry Has Died With Him Today”, Barbara Broccoli Says
  • ATTACK ON TITAN Publisher Kodansha Launching Manga App
  • ‘Storage Wars’ Gunter Nezhoda Dead at 67
  • Tasmanian Tiger ‘Probably’ Survived to 1980s or Even Later, Study Claims
  • Nintendo Switch firmware updated to Version 16.0.1 (patch notes)
  • Europe tools up for the repairable future
  • Saliva Guitarist Wayne Swinny Dead at 59 After Brain Hemorrhage
  • ‘Five Nights at Freddy’s’ Movie Adds Elizabeth Lail to the Cast
Ads by Amazon

Tech

  • Europe tools up for the repairable future
  • Amazon expands Fire TV lineup with more QLED models, entry-level 2-Series TVs and new markets
  • CodiumAI is using generative AI to help developers build code logic tests automatically
  • Kakao Mobility picks up ‘super app’ startup Splyt, once backed by SoftBank and Grab
  • Foiled again: Candela raises another $20M to set course for the future of ferries
  • Berlin’s Monite raises $5M seed for its embedded B2B payments platform
  • The Monarch could be the next big thing in Braille
Ads by Amazon

Action Figures / Toys

  • REVIEW: Marvel Select Super Skrull Figure (Diamond Select Toys 2023)
  • Spider-Man Marvel Legends 2023 Figures Up for Order! Rose! Ben Reilly! Elektra Daredevil!
  • X-Men Marvel Legends Longshot Retro Series Figure Review (Hasbro 2023)
  • Marvel Legends Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 3 Movie Figures Up for Order! Adam Warlock! Cosmo Build-A-Figure!
  • Marvel Legends Ant-Man Quantumania Figures Up for Order! Cassie Lang BAF Series!
  • REVIEW: Marvel Legends Shuri Black Panther Wakanda Forever Movie Figure
  • Marvel Legends 2023: Franklin/Valeria Richards! Yondu! PS5 Spider-Man! Squadron Supreme!

Categories

  • Action Figures/ Toys
  • Books
  • Comics
  • Events
  • Games
  • Horror
  • Interviews
  • Movies
  • Music
  • News
  • Science
  • Tech
  • Television
  • Uncategorized

Archives

  • March 2023
  • February 2023
  • January 2023
  • December 2022
  • November 2022
  • October 2022
  • September 2022
  • August 2022
  • July 2022
  • June 2022
  • May 2022
  • April 2022
  • March 2022
  • February 2022
  • January 2022
  • December 2021
  • November 2021
  • October 2021
  • September 2021
  • August 2021
  • July 2021
  • June 2021
  • May 2021
  • April 2021
  • March 2021
  • February 2021
  • January 2021
  • December 2020
  • November 2020
  • October 2020
  • September 2020
  • August 2020
  • July 2020
  • June 2020
  • May 2020
  • April 2020
  • March 2020
  • February 2020
  • January 2020
  • December 2019
  • November 2019
  • October 2019
  • September 2019

Categories

  • Action Figures/ Toys
  • Books
  • Comics
  • Events
  • Games
  • Horror
  • Interviews
  • Movies
  • Music
  • News
  • Science
  • Tech
  • Television
  • Uncategorized

Useful Links

  • Contact us
  • About us
  • Amazon Disclaimer
  • DMCA / Copyrights Disclaimer
  • Privacy Policy
  • Terms and Conditions

Recent Articles

  • Watch Caroline Polachek Perform “Welcome to My Island” on Fallon
  • Rob Zombie Recording New ‘House of 1000 Corpses’ Commentary Track 20 Years Later; Available Next Month
  • Erik Lomis Remembered By Hollywood Colleagues And Friends: “A Part Of The Industry Has Died With Him Today”, Barbara Broccoli Says
  • ATTACK ON TITAN Publisher Kodansha Launching Manga App
  • ‘Storage Wars’ Gunter Nezhoda Dead at 67

Copyright © 2023 by Daily Geek Report. All rights reserved. All articles, images, product names, logos, and brands are property of their respective owners. All company, product and service names used in this website are for identification purposes only. Use of these names, logos, and brands does not imply endorsement unless specified. By using this site, you agree to the Terms of Use and Privacy Policy.

Powered by WordPress using DisruptPress Theme.