University Says It Can Account for Missing Brains

The case of the University of Texas at Austin's missing brains has apparently been solved.

On Wednesday afternoon, after a day of much confusion, the university issued a statement that most of the 100 brains, preserved in formaldehyde in jars, that had disappeared from the basement of the Animal Resources Center had been disposed of by the university's environmental health and safety officials in 2002, under protocols for biological waste.

Not everyone is convinced that the university's explanation accounts for all the missing gray matter. But if accurate, the statement resolves the status of a most unlikely collection of missing items - the brains taken from mental patients in autopsies as far back as the 1950s. They were kept in heavy glass jars, each with an identification label, a diagnosis and the date of death, according to Alex Hannaford, co-author of a new book, "Malformed: Forgotten Brains of the Texas State Mental Hospital," with Adam Voorhes, who photographed the brain collection.

The disposal "was done in coordination with faculty members who determined that the specimens had been in poor condition when the university received them in the 1980s and were not suitable for research or teaching," the statement said. "Faculty members then maintained possession of other brain specimens in the collection that the university continues to own."

The missing brains, which made up about half the university's collection, were transferred to the university from Austin State Hospital, a psychiatric care facility, 28 years ago - a coup for the university at a time when the specimens were sought by a number of other research universities, including Harvard, which has the nation's largest brain bank.

The University of Texas statement said the health and safety officials were thought to have disposed of 40 to 60 jars, some of which contained multiple human brains.

"As far as we know, that accounts for all of them," said Gary Susswein, a spokesman for the university. "But we're continuing our investigation to make sure that none went to other institutions."
Hannaford said he was skeptical of the university's conclusion that the 100 brains had all been disposed of.

"I don't buy it," he said. "These jars were designed to hold one brain, and I find it hard to believe that if 40 jars were disposed of, that accounted for all the brains."

Early Tuesday afternoon, there were reports that the missing brains had turned up at the University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio.

"We have no evidence that any brain specimens were shared with other universities or health institutions," the statement said, adding that there was also no evidence that one of the brains destroyed came from Charles Whitman, the tower sniper whose 1966 rampage terrorized the campus and killed 16.

According to the statement, the university will investigate why some of the specimens were disposed of and how all of them had been handled since the university received the collection.

Last year in Indianapolis, David Charles, 21, was charged with stealing 60 human brains from the Indiana Medical History Museum. The police were tipped off by Brian Kubasco of San Diego, who had bought six of the brains on eBay for $600, and suspected they were stolen. About 48 of the brains were returned to the museum, which is on the grounds of a former state psychiatric hospital. All of the brains were from the autopsies of mental patients over roughly a half-century through the 1940s.

"These brain collections go back to the mid-1800s, and it's not uncommon for their whereabouts to be unclear," said Brian Burrell, a University of Massachusetts, Amherst, professor and author of "Postcards From the Brain Museum: The Improbable Search for Meaning in the Matter of Famous Minds."

Disposing of such a collection can be awkward, he says, since it may not be possible to give away the brains. Sometimes, he says, an institution does not even know it has them.

EBay policy prohibits the sale of human remains, with the exception of hair and skulls, as well as skeletons sold for medical use. But enforcement is not air tight, as evidenced by the Indiana case.

While a federal law protecting the burial sites of Native Americans prohibits trade in Indian funeral objects and human remains, it is generally left to the states to regulate the trade of remains.

Some extensive collections of brains have simply vanished.

"There was one collection of 600 brains, by a Philadelphia anatomist, and no one knows where they are," Burrell said.