To Track Mental Illness, Researchers Are Taking the DNA Of Century-Old Brains In Jars
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[QUOTE]DNA extracted from canned human brains could help researchers studying mental health disorders, if scientists can figure out how to mine it. Preserved brains taken from autopsied patients — some dating to the 1890s — could serve as a new archive of old data related to mental health.
The Indiana Medical History Museum in Indianapolis owns a collection of preserved brains and brain chunks that were taken from mentally ill patients during autopsies. An Indiana University pathologist has been trying to extract DNA from them to search for genes related to schizophrenia and other disorders, a Scientific American story says.
Certain gene variants are thought to be related to schizophrenia, but scientists haven’t isolated a single mutation or series of mutations that can be directly linked to the disease (or other mental health disorders, for that matter). So studying preserved brain specimens could add to the body of evidence. But a mentally ill person’s brain is difficult to come by — autopsies are on the decline, for one thing, and institutions that do maintain brain donation banks tend to guard them carefully, SciAm says. Enter the jellied brains.
As an added benefit, the preserved samples also come with detailed clinical notes, which can help modern researchers make post-mortem diagnoses. And perhaps most usefully, the brains have not been altered by modern medicines, offering an untainted view of the physiology of a schizophrenic mind. Extracting DNA and RNA from these jellied brains has proven difficult, however, although researchers were able to extract DNA after the samples were stored in liquid nitrogen. The work has not yet been peer-reviewed or published, but if the DNA extraction methods are validated, it could yield a new database of brain information.
[img]http://www.popsci.com/files/imagecache/article_image_large/articles/brainjar.jpg[/img][/QUOTE]
Source: [url]http://www.popsci.com/science/article/2012-01/dna-tests-vintage-jellied-brains-could-yield-new-mental-illness-insights[/url]
You find some cool shit.
[QUOTE=Robrosky;34140076]You find some cool shit.[/QUOTE]
Everything from Popular Science is awesome. I'm subscribed to their magazine as well.
these things are still floating around? creepy.
[QUOTE=Emperor Scorpious II;34140095]Everything from Popular Science is awesome. I'm subscribed to their magazine as well.[/QUOTE]
I hate that their magazine is pumped full of ads, though.
[QUOTE=Sparkwire;34140109]I hate that their magazine is pumped full of ads, though.[/QUOTE]
They have to pay for it somehow. And I've yet to come across a magazine that isn't, to be honest.
gross
[QUOTE=Emperor Scorpious II;34140118]They have to pay for it somehow. And I've yet to come across a magazine that isn't, to be honest.[/QUOTE]
I suppose you're right, though i do think it has more ads than average.
This would be really neat in the future, like if we ever devise the technology to create a device that allows us to read the brain, we could see their entire life through their eyes.
What a gay brain.
OT: this is actually pretty cool, it's amazing we still have these, too.
[QUOTE=Hardpoint Nomad;34140416]This would be really neat in the future, like if we ever devise the technology to create a device that allows us to read the brain, we could see their entire life through their eyes.[/QUOTE]
All people would see through my eyes is porn :v:
I remember reading somewhere that they found an abandoned Soviet science lab concentrating on nuero science in the 60s and 70s, and they found a shitload of animal and human brains still in jars, or dumped in bathtubs with nasty formaldehyde and stuff.
Careful, they might gain sentience.
Again.
[QUOTE=Emperor Scorpious II;34140458]All people would see through my eyes is porn :v:[/QUOTE]
Elaborate porn piracy :haw:
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