Here’s a tourist attraction that’ll get you thinking – India’s first ever brain museum.
It’s housed inside the National Institute of Mental Health and Neuro Sciences (Nimhams) in Bangalore – formerly the Bangalore Lunatic Asylum.
It has just recently opened up to visitors, who can peer at brains and other organs in display cases – and even hold them.
One of the workers at the brain museum holds up a human brain that is on display. The researchers who lead tours there encourage visitors to hold the brains in an effort to ‘demystify’ them
Among the brains on display are those from people who have suffered from a range of illnesses including Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s disease and schizophrenia. Each brain is labelled with the disease or injury it suffered
The museum displays other organs, too, including the lungs of a heavy smoker (pictured), a pancreas, kidneys, a heart, a voice box and a human skeleton
Scientists working at Nimhams examine the brains and other organs of people who have left their bodies to medical science.
And the researchers who lead tours there encourage visitors to hold the brains on display in an effort to ‘demystify’ them.
Dr. S.K. Shankar, who has worked at the institute for decades, told Atlas Obscura: ‘People think these neurological diseases are something like an evil spirit. We want to remove that idea.’
Among the brains on display are those from people who have suffered from a range of illnesses including Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s disease and schizophrenia.
In addition they also show brains that have suffered injuries such as haemorrhages.
The museum displays other organs, too, including the lungs of a heavy smoker, a pancreas, kidneys, a heart, a voice box and a human skeleton.
Scientists working at Nimhams examine the brains and other organs of people who have left their bodies to medical science
The museum’s website says a visit to the lab is a ‘once in a lifetime experience’ and is the only museum of its kind in India
The museum’s website says a visit to the lab is a ‘once in a life time experience’ and is the only museum of its kind in India.
But the lab in India isn’t the only brain museum in the world – the Santo Toribio de Mogrovejo Hospital in Lima, Peru, also has a massive collection of diseased and healthy brains.
The hospital, which was founded more than three centuries ago, has a total of 2,912 brains collected over the years, and nearly 300 of these are on display in a mind-opening exhibit.
On arrival, visitors are invited to touch a real skull, where they can feel the cranial bone structure and imagine how it holds 22 square feet of intricately-folded brain matter.