National Brain Research Centre - NBRC

The Birth of the National Brain Research Centre

Brain research, in its modern 'avtar', had a comparatively late and patchy entry in India. Prior to our Independence, except for some mental hospitals, there were hardly any departments, leave aside full-fledged centres devoted to neurosciences. It was only in 1950s that our pioneers, like Professors Chandy, Ramamuthi, Baldev Singh, Ginde, Barucha, CGS Iyer and DK Dastur, on their return from training abroad, initiated specialized units of Neurosurgery, Neurology and Neuropathology in India. Around the same time, Professors B.K. Anand, Autar Paintal, B.K. Bachhawat and N.H. Keswani sowed the seeds of basic disciplines in neuroscience including Neurophysiology, Neurochemistry and Neuroanatomy. It is to the credit of these pioneers that while they concentrated on their own disciplines, they were conscious of the need to promote the development of allied disciplines. It was the dream of most of these pioneers to establish a multidisciplinary comprehensive neurosciences institute. The efforts of Prof. Chandy at CMC Vellore and the evolution of NIMHANS, Bangalore represent some early efforts in this direction. In the early 1960s, the All India Institute of Medical Sciences established nuclei of various basic and clinical neurosciences activities.

As early as December, 1964, Professors B.K. Anand and Baldev Singh approached the authorities to establish a Brain Research Centre at AIIMS. Paucity of funds and an urgent need to provide for specialized patient care services resulted in the establishment of the Clinical Neurosciences Centre at AIIMS by the mid-1970s. While the country witnessed the establishment of a fair number of state-of-art clinical neuroscience centres between 1950 and 1980, the development of basic neurosciences lagged behind.

The declaration of 1990s as the Decade of the Brain prompted the author to write to Prof. M.G.K. Menon, then Minister for Science and Technology, Government of India, the urgent need to establish a Brain Research Centre to promote basic research and training in Neurosciences. On his advice, the Department of Biotechnology along with the Department of Science and Technology organized a National Brain Storming Session on 31st August and 1st September, 1990 to discuss measures needed to promote neurosciences in the country.