Matters of the brain

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Beyond the nondescript white doors of Room 002 of the Neurobiology Research Centre lies the chance of a lifetime-to touch and hold the human brain.
Taking the world-weary adage of "seeing is believing" to a monumental new level is the Human Brain Museum at Bangalore's National Institute of Mental Health and SECRET IN THE CITY Neurosciences (NIMHANS), the nation's only brain collection open to public viewing. The brainchild of retired professor SK Shankar, this one-hall museum houses over 600 samples and serves as a knowledge resource for students and a beacon for organ donation for all who enter.
"The specimens have been procured with consent of the deceased individual's family. As much as the museum is a labour of love, it stands for and on goodwill," says Shankar. Marking the genesis of the idea is a brain sample which was procured in November 1879 by the Institute's neuropathology department, that of a boy who was trampled by an ox.
Picture courtesy: Deepak G Pawar

Today the brain remains mounted at the entrance of the museum. The tour here begins with an invitation to feel a real skull. Before you finish running your fingers along the hollows, your guide pulls back a cloth to reveal a wet mass made up mostly of water, with grooves and swirls, weighing a mere 1.5 kg-the human brain.
Besides this, you can also view the inner workings of your body-the liver, pancreas, kidneys, spinal cord separated from the vertebral column and several heart samples, and also brain samples from the animal kingdom. AT NIMHANS Neuropathology Brain Museum, Hosur Road. Tel 26563357 Entry Free

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