Director of Bangalore-based NIMHANS D Nagaraja told PTI on Wednesday that his institute was planning to write to the SSKM Medical College in Kolkata, seeking to know whether Basu’s brain can be handed over to it for research purposes. “Basu had donated his body for medical research. Based on that we want the SSKM Medical College to hand over the brain to us,” he said.

The neuro-pathology department of the NIMHANS would write a letter to the SSKM in this regard, he said. Basu’s body was handed over to SSKM authorities on Tuesday. According to him, there are numerous age-related changes in a human brain and some brains are more alert than others. “There are some factors which prevent the fast ageing of a brain. We want to look into that,” he said.