The Danish basement housing 10,000 human brains
In the basement of a university in Denmark, is what’s believed to be the world’s largest collection of human brains.
Now stored in white buckets and preserved in formalin, the brains were amassed between 1945 and 1982, from deceased patients at the country’s state mental health institutions.
However, the collection has a checkered history. Permission wasn’t sought from the patients or their families, and it was a time when such medical rights hadn’t yet evolved. This led to a heated ethical debate in the 1990s and early 2000s and it was eventually settled that the brains should be used for science. The collection is unique because many brains pre-date medication. Today researchers hope it can be used to contribute to a better understanding and treatment of mental illnesses.
Video by Adrienne Murray & James Brooks
Commissioned by Dan John
