This Giant Brain Collection Could Help Treat Diseases

by Jeff DonlanA psychiatric hospital in Belgium now holds the world’s largest collections of human brains, which could offer new treatments for diseases such as psychosis, schizophrenia and severe depression.The Duffel Psychiatric Hospital has more than 3,000 human brains from diseased psychiatric patients who died between the ’50s and ’70s. The collection started more than 40 years ago by British neuropathologist John Corsellis in London, but after running out of space, the hospital agreed to send the older brains to the Duffel hospital.“We went over there and adopted most of the brains that are relevant to psychiatric research,” said Manuel Morrens, professor of cognitive neuroscience at the University of Antwerp, who oversees the collection.Scientists say the older brains are the most significant, because they carry diseases that were not treated with modern medicines.“You can really go into which proteins are active during certain phases of the illness,” Morrens told reporters. “This will really contribute to our understanding of what is going on in the brain.”
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