Historical background
The Brain Collection is one of the largest collections of its kind in the world. It is a unique collection of brain material collected over a period of 37 years from 1945 to 1982, from more than 9,000 psychiatric patients who were autopsied at the Danish state mental hospitals. The brains are from people diagnosed with dementia, schizophrenia, mania, major depression and other more rare psychiatric diagnosis, who have never received any modern medical treatment.
In 1944, the Directorate for the State Mental Hospitals in Denmark initiated the establishment of an institute for brain pathology at the Psychiatric State Mental Hospital in Risskov just outside Aarhus.
The institute was to be in charge of the post-mortem examination of brains from patients who died in the State Mental Hospitals. The Institute of Brain Pathology opened April 1, 1945.
The Institute of Brain Pathology was closed May 1, 1982, and the collected brains were saved for future research and form the present Brain Collection.
The Danish state mental hospitals
The brains came from patients autopsied at the Danish state mental hospitals. The largest psychiatric hospital in Denmark, Sct. Hans Hospital, was not a state mental hospital and hence did not send brains to Risskov for examination.
The majority of the brains came from the large and old state mental hospitals (Risskov, Middelfart and Nykøbing Sjælland), whereas only few brains from the more recently established psychiatric hospitals were examined.
The Brain Collection moves from Aarhus to Odense
In 2018 Odense University Hospital together with the University of Southern Denmark (SDU) took over the responsibility for The Brain Collection.
The agreement on the transfer came one year after the decision by the the Regional Council (Central Jutland) to shut down The Brain Collection, unless a worthy recipient was found. The argument for the disposing of the collection was that its research value was not commensurate with the cost of moving and maintaining the collection in the new Skejby hospital building.
Fortunately, Odense University Hospital and BRIDGE Brain Research - Inter Disciplinary Guided Excellence was interested in taking over The Brain Collection. The ambition here is to increase the research-related utilisation of the collection for the benefits of the patients.
Tissue material from The Brain Collection has subsequently been distributed to both national and international investigators for research. This research is of critical importance in furthering our understanding of mental diseases and pathophysiological changes behind these diseases.