Brains are not just food for zombies, but an enigma to the professionals who study them. The brain functions as the coordinating center of sensation and intellectual nervous activity, and it is believed that the brain is the key to understanding things like mental illness, disease, and psychological ambiguities. But what good is a brain, without mindful substance, aside from a tasty snack?
David Marr, a British neuroscientist and physiologist suggested that mental processes be studied at three levels: computational (the goal of the process), algorithmic (the method to complete the process), and implementation (the tools or hardware to perform the process). The separation of the mental process into these three parts implies that the first two parts, computational and algorithmic, can be accomplished by the human brain, or a computer.
This line of thinking allows the scientist to ignore the brain completely and think of it in terms of a computer program. This route leads you to the development of A.I.
While understanding the brain as computational and algorithmic is nice, it doesn’t explain why. Why do some people behave in certain ways? Why do some people suffer from varying illnesses? What makes a killer a killer?
The mind is an important piece in understanding behavior. By gathering data and mapping brain structure and psychological function, scientists can begin to link differences in brain activity and behavior.
Scientists have studied the brains of more than 800 prisoners. In a study co-authored by a UChicago neuroscientist found that differences in the brains of murderers could be linked to empathy and morality. These brain scans showed reduced gray matter in those who had been convicted of homicide or attempted homicide. The reduction was especially apparent in the areas of the brain that are associated with emotional processing, behavioral control, and social cognition.
“More gray matter means more cells, neurons and glia,” said Jean Decety, the Irving B. Harris Distinguished Service Professor in Psychology and Psychiatry at UChicago, noting differences in the orbitofrontal cortex and anterior temporal lobes of the brain. “That’s what you need to make computations, to process information—whether it’s emotional information that you use to feel empathy for someone else, or information that you use to control your behavior, to suppress your tendencies to react.”
The work to study brains goes beyond brain scans. Doctors have been removing the organ for study for years. A popular harvesting ground would be the insane asylum or mental health hospitals. Patients who died would often have their brain removed for study.
In 1995, after his death, Jeffrey Dahmer, The Milwaukee Cannibal, was cremated, all except for his brain, which was preserved while his parents argued about whether to give it to scientists for study. The state pathologist’s office held the brain in formaldehyde at the request of his mother, who wanted scientists to determine if biological factors influenced his actions.
“Jeff always said that, if he could be of any help, he wanted to do whatever he could,” his mother Joyce Flint told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel following her son’s cremation.
His father, however, said his son wanted his brain to be cremated with his body, and fought for his son’s final wish.
In the end, the judge ordered the cremation of Dahmer’s brain; the ashes were split between his parents.
In 1980, at the age of 38, John Wayne Gacy was found guilty of 33 counts of murder, and guilty of sexual assault and taking indecent liberties with a child. Psychiatrist Helen Morrison, who acted as a witness for the defence during his trial, claimed that he was legally insane at the time of the murders. The jury rejected the insanity defense and he was convicted, sentenced to death.
After his death, Morrison obtained permission from Gacy’s living relatives to have his brain removed prior to his cremation and given to her to study. She reportedly keeps it in a sealed bag in her basement.
Researchers who have asked to remain unnamed have studied the brain. The conclusion was not what anyone was expecting. “They basically told us that there’s actually nothing abnormal, so no tumor, no growth, no sign of any injury. The ventricles are fine; no sign of hydrocephalus,” Morrison said.
In 2019, Zak Bagans, lead investigator and host of the show, Ghost Adventures, and owner of the Haunted Museum, met Helen Morrison. He is one of a very limited number of people to have seen and held Gacy’s brain. He described the feeling of cradling the brain as pure evil, even said that he was shaking. He has since offered an undisclosed amount to buy the brain, but Morrison refused.
Serial Killer Diogo Alves killed 70 people between 1836 and 1840. He was sentenced to death and hanged on February 19, 1841. The Escola Medico Cirurgica of Lisbon decided they wanted to study his head; they wanted to understand what motivated a person to commit such evil deeds.
Alves’ head was removed from his body, and placed in a flask to preserve. Today it is a tourist attraction, viewable to those who visit the Faculty of Medicine at Lisbon University.
Another letdown came with the study of Ted Bundy’s brain. Bundy was convicted of murdering 3 women, though he confessed to 28 murders in total. In life, he had described the act of killing as similar to an addiction to drugs, as well as saying whenever he felt the urge to perform one of his unspeakable acts it was akin to a ‘chemical tidal wave washing through his brain’.
After his execution, his brain was removed to study. Unfortunately, when the scientists looked at it, they found it to be completely normal. There were no deformities, with no lesions or injuries at all.
With the fascination surrounding brains, is it really that surprising when 100 brains turn up in a bathtub in an abandoned lunatic asylum? After all, the brains of the mentally are arguably the ones most worth studying.
In 2014, a photo went viral of brains in a bathtub. These brains were supposedly found in an abandoned lunatic asylum in Texas. Searching for more information on these brains, where they came from, returns few results, aside from an interesting reddit post. Whose brains were these, and how did they end up in a bathtub?
Are brains the key to learning how people think, and how they behave? If so, what can we learn from the fact that neither Alves’ or Bundy’s brains appeared out of the ordinary. Were they just monsters, without the mental illness?