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Health Check: Brain bank collection
The Corsellis collection of brains was started in the 1950s and is now one of the largest collections of its kind in the world.
Now housed at St Bernard's Hospital in West London, the collection includes more than 6000 brains, with examples of neurological and psychiatric disorders as well as healthy brains.
Claudia Hammond visits this extraordinary collection and talks to its curator, consultant psychiatrist Dr Michael Maier from Imperial College London. He explains why the collection can offer such a wealth of detailed information about brain disease and why it differs from information provided by modern brain scanning techniques.
Dr Matthew Williams, neuroscientist with West London Mental Health Trust, receives tissue requests from neuroscientists all over the world to study conditions like schizophrenia, depression, alcoholism, epilepsy and even the rare brain disorder Huntington's disease.
Researchers hope in the future to use new techniques from molecular genetics to address fundamental questions about psychiatric illness.
Imperial College London: Neuropathology Unit
BrainNet Europe - BrainNet Europe
West London Mental Health Trust Corsellis Collection publication
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