Japanese psychiatric brain bank and human right

Abstract

Brain bank is an indispensable research resource for pathophysiological studies of mental illnesses. In Japan, a national law for autopsy and dead body storage (1949) has been applied to manage brain bank, though this law is said to need some amendment for research use of human brain materials. In history of Japanese psychiatry, problems of Utsunomiya Hospital, which continued from 1960's and manifested in 1987, caused serious incredulity on psychiatric research and psychiatric medicine. There has been tremendous illegality including autopsy performed by "no" autopsy-qualified individuals such as nurses in Utsunomiya Hospital. In 1987, the Law of Mental Health was amended in Japan in order to protect patients' human right. Recently, following the Great East Japan Earthquake and nuclear disaster in 2011, Fukushima Psychiatric Brain bank, established in 1997, continued its activity in spite of lacking an autopsy-qualified researcher among them. This illegality has been concealed for approximately 2 years. Some problems of human right which have been infringed by brain researchers of psychiatric brain bank and of post-mortem brain studies of psychiatric illnesses in Japan are described.