(Newswire.net — December 3, 2014) — Austin, Texas – More than a hundred brains are missing from the University of Texas at Austin. Under a “temporary possession” agreement, the University borrowed around 200 human brains almost three decades ago from the Austin State Hospital, for the purpose of scientific study.
The brains were held in the jars field with formaldehyde. Half of them were being stored in the school’s psychology lab. Due to the lack of space, others were stored in the basement of the university’s Animal Resources Center. Among the stolen ones, there was a brain believed to have belonged to clock tower sniper Charles Whitman.
“We think somebody may have taken the brains, but we don’t know at all for sure,” psychology Professor Tim Schallert, co-curator of the collection, told the Austin American.
Schallert said Whitman’s brain likely was part of the collection, however, the university’s agreement with the hospital required the school to remove any data that might identify the person from whom the brain came.
“It would make sense that it would be in this group. We can’t find that brain,” he said.
Psychology Professor Lawrence Cormack, co-curator of the collection, said, “It’s entirely possible that word got around among undergraduates and people started swiping them for living rooms or Halloween pranks.” Cormack doesn’t have even a theory as to who needs the brains and why. Nonetheless, “the brains are no longer in the basement,” Cormack said.
He added that the remaining brains have been moved to the Norman Hackerman Building, where they are being scanned with high-resolution resonance imaging equipment.
“These MRI images will be both useful teaching and research tools. It keeps the brains intact,” Cormack told the newspaper.