History Main / BrainInAJar

-->'''Artemis:''' Uh, I can ''see'' it's a brain.

* The Brain from the ''ComicBook/DoomPatrol'' comics as listed above appears as the BigBad in the last season of the ''WesternAnimation/TeenTitans'' animated series. Beast Boy was able to make a {{pun}} on The Brain's defeat:
--> '''Beast Boy:''' Hey, check it out! ''[flash-freezes The Brain]'' BrainFreeze!
--> ''[[[LamePunReaction everyone present groans]]]''

** Mother Brain, a re-occurring final boss, is just a brain in a tank in ''VideoGame/Metroid1'', guarded by various gun turrets and organic barriers. It is supposedly a biological supercomputer.

* The ''VideoGame/MissionImpossible1990'' NES game. The second-to-last room in the VeryDefinitelyFinalDungeon has its walls lined with brains and hearts in life-support tanks. It's even scarier when you realize [[NintendoHard how much effort it took to get there]], and that nothing else in the game hints that the Sinister 7 were creating bio-weapons.

* ''Literature/TheShipWho'' series: The so-called "brainships" are something basically similar to this, although the "jars" hold more than just the brain. Infants with otherwise fatal congenital defects (and rarely older children who have been left quadriplegic by accident or disease) are encased in a life-support system, with a control interface directly attached to their nervous system so that they can interact with the world via computers. They make great starship pilots because the direct neural interface improves their reaction times and they have minimal life-support needs.

* Creator/LarryNiven's short story "Literature/BecalmedInHell" has a ''sans corpus'' fellow running a probe to the surface of Venus and contains a ShoutOut to the above book by naming the bodiless chap Donovan.

* "{{Literature/Nightwings}}" by Creator/RobertSilverberg: Brain jars effectively serve as information storage systems.

%%* ''VideoGame/BrainDead13'': The MadScientist villain is one of these.

* ''ComicBook/TheSavageDragon'' features recurring villain Brainiape, who is this combined with psychic powers and EverythingsBetterWithMonkeys... and whose occupant turns out to be [[spoiler: the mutated, preserved brain of Adolf Hitler]].

Keep [[AccidentalPun in mind]] that in real life, just pulling the brain out of a living person's head and plopping it in a tub of sterile saline would leave you with a starved, dead brain the next morning, so you'd need to hook the blood vessels up to some sort of fluid pump (ala the heart) to keep the brain supplied with oxygen and nutrients. But then you'd also need an air pump (ala the lungs) and nutrient intake device (ala the digestive tract) to keep that ''fluid pump'' supplied with that oxygen and nutrients. And then you'd need a regular filtration system (ala the urinary system) to keep the brain from dying of "blood" poisoning. But at this point it all amounts to basically a near-complete prosthetic body, so you might as well attach some limbs and call it a robot with a WetwareCPU.

* ''Film/CrankHighVoltage'': [[spoiler:Ricky Verona]].
* ''Film/RunRonnieRun'': One of the characters ends up this way.
* ''Franchise/StarWars'':
** According to supplemental material, General Grievious is actually a brain (and eyes, plus a few other parts) inside a fully robotic body, which he had to be transferred into after most of his body was ruined in a nearly-fatal shuttle crash.
** The B'omarr monks in Jabba the Hutt's temple-turned-hideout do this to themselves eventually, regarding it as the ultimate in sensory deprivation, enabling themselves to focus all their mental energy to meditation. When they need to move around, they can attach their brain-jars to spider-like sentry droids.

** The short story anthology ''Literature/TalesFromJabbasPalace'' reveals that the spiderlike droids seen in Jabba's palace in ''Return of the Jedi'' are mechanisms used for getting around by a group of monks who have chosen life as brains-in-jars. (You can actually see the jars on the undersides in the film if you know to look for them.)
** Bib Fortuna, when a fellow Twi'lek and associate of his was slated to be fed to the Rancor, had the man's brain removed and stuck in one of the spider droids first. Bib believed that without a body Nat was going insane. The epilogue reveals that [[spoiler:Bib Fortuna]] eventually joined him. The ''ComicBook/XWingRogueSquadron'' comics reveal that [[spoiler: Bib]] was still able to plot and get messages out; eventually yet another Twi'lek came to carry [[spoiler: Bib]] off, heaping a lot of verbal abuse and using electric torture on the brain walker in the process. Later the other Twi'lek tried to ditch the walker, but [[spoiler: Bib]] stowed away and, after the other Twi'lek was stabbed, managed to drag him back to the palace and the monks. Cut to the Twi'lek rising out of a bacta tank, and the attendant droid remarking on the loyalty of the brain droid, how it had insisted on having a restraining bolt fitted to it, and that the scars on the Twi'lek's head seemed to indicate a brain transfer. Devious, [[spoiler: Bib]]. For someone with a "weak will", that's rather [[MagnificentBastard Magnificent]]. Part of a Twi'lek's brain is in his or her headtails, so a Twi'lek brain in a jar looks rather odd.
** ''Literature/GalaxyOfFear: The Brain Spiders'' deals with this too. Jabba found a way to profit off brain spiders by transferring brains around, putting wanted criminal brains in monk or prisoner bodies, putting the displaced brains in jars or spiders, and turning the criminal bodies in for reward. Thanks to an intended monk escaping, one criminal [[spoiler: ends up in 13-year-old [[GenderBender Tash Arranda's body]]. He does not like being a girl, and she doesn't like being in a spider.]] Fortunately, that gets reversed.
** Once Jabba dies, the monks went batshit with brain spider-ing, doing it to anyone who stayed in the palace. Most didn't want to, but one criminal, as revealed in the epilogue for "Tales From Jabba's Palace", went willingly because he was tired of living in the heat and he couldn't leave Tatooine.

* The Deckmen from ''Manga/BattleAngelAlita'' are this -- with their facial flesh included.
* The founders of the Time-Space Administration Bureau in ''Anime/MagicalGirlLyricalNanohaStrikers'' turn out to have been reduced to these.
* The [[BodyHorror Kedora]] from ''Anime/MazingerZ'' and ''Anime/GreatMazinger''. Creator/KenIshikawa one-shot "The Relic of Evil" revealed that [[spoiler: the Mykene controlled his {{Robeast}} by grafting the brain of a soldier taught to destroy all non-Mykene civilizations into a parasitic organism, and it fused with a robot, giving the Mykene soldier complete control.]] They would show up later in ''Anime/ShinMazinger''.

** Most full cyborg models allow for the case that holds the brain to be removed and connected to an external life support system. In one episode of ''Anime/GhostInTheShellStandAloneComplex'' a government official is about to be smuggled out of the country by hiding his brain in a suitcase. In another, an unconventional movie director decided to eschew his body, placing his brain case into a networked life support system and waiting for any wandering divers to come watch the movie in his brain.

** And, of course, the central character, Major Motoko Kusanagi, is a full cyborg and thus this trope. The purple-haired bombshell is the jar.
* Akira in the beginning of ''Manga/ExArm'' has been reduced to a brain in a titanium suitcase, but he can control hacked electronics, including an AnimatedArmor, like he would his own body.
* Part of Araya's "Spiral Paradox" in ''LightNovel/TheGardenOfSinners'' relied on these.
* The Magi computers in ''Anime/NeonGenesisEvangelion'' are powered by human brains. However, although the episode mentioned "[[OrganicTechnology organic supercomputers]]" that bear a strong resemblance to a human brain, it's not clear whether they used actual cloned human brain tissue or were just reverse-engineered. Here's the best that can be determined. All three are based on the brain of Dr. Naoko Akagi (mother of Ritsuko) or rather specific aspects of her: one is based on her as a scientist, one on her as a mother, and the last on her as a woman. If the Magi are organic, they were likely built based on particular brain patterns, so they're likely not direct clones.
* In ''Manga/{{Akira}}'', this is [[spoiler:the current state of Akira, together with the rest of his nervous system... until he comes back, that is.]]

** The second movie, ''[[Anime/DragonBallZTheWorldsStrongest The World's Strongest]]'', features Dr. Wheelo, who seems to be a brain in a jar. But then turns out to be a brain in a jar in a massive mecha. With guns. And lasers.

* Despite being an Anime-version of a Western pulp series, Simon Wright from ''Anime/CaptainFuture'' should be mentioned here. He is an archetypal brain in a (highly mobile) jar, with a tractor beam and other appendages; and an array of blinkenlights for a mouth.
* It is (briefly) revealed in ''Anime/RODTheTV'' that [[spoiler:the reality-warping effect that causes London to take on elements of fictional works like ''Literature/TheWarOfTheWorlds'' and ''Literature/TheLostWorld1912'' is (at least in part) run by the preserved brains of famous authors.]]
* In the ''Franchise/LupinIII'' movie ''Anime/TheMysteryOfMamo'', ending spoiler: [[spoiler:it turns out the movie's main villain was a gigantic version of this trope all along, and all the "clones" of him running around were all controlled with microchips in their brains that were wirelessly connected to him.]]

** Rensa is a cyborg with 40 different brains that can be inserted into her head to animate her. [[spoiler:After Touma destroys Rensa, he finds the brains and puts them into cold storage until something can be done about them.]]

* In ''Manga/{{Bleach}}'':

* The anime sequel to ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyV'' has the BigBad steal Cid's corpse from his tomb and resurrect him as a HUGE brain. Seriously, it's several times the size of a human.
* One can be seen in ''Manga/MurasakiiroNoQualia'' in chapter 11. [[spoiler: It's Yukari's brain.]] The real-life example of Einstein's brain is also mentioned.
* [[spoiler:The Sibyl System]] in ''Anime/PsychoPass''.
* Celty's head in ''LightNovel/{{Durarara}}'', though it wasn't technically ''attached'' in the first place.
* In the 2001 version of ''Manga/Cyborg009'', [[spoiler: the ''true'' leaders of Black Ghost are '''three''' brains in jars, hiding inside a shuttle. The three can somehow speak: one talks with a man's voice, another with a woman's, and the third has a child's one.]]
* In ''Manga/KnightsOfSidonia'', the traitorous Ochiai had his cybernetically-enhanced brain taken out and placed in storage after he destroyed most of Sidonia's libraries and data stores, leaving him the sole possessor of the knowledge they possessed. A clone of him, conditioned to be loyal to Sidonia, was created to act as a medium through which they can access his knowledge. [[spoiler:Ochiai's mind eventually escapes confinement when he takes over Norio Kunato's body.]]
* In Creator/ShotaroIshinomori's original manga version of ''Series/KamenRider'', [[spoiler:Takeshi Hongo, the Kamen Rider himself, is mortally wounded fighting the Shocker Riders. His brain is hooked into a computer and he becomes MissionControl for Hayato Ichimonji, who takes up the Kamen Rider mantle. In the final chapter, Hongo's brain is implanted into a fully mechanical body and he helps Ichimonji defeat Shocker once and for all.]]

* In ''LightNovel/RebuildWorld'', Alpha mentions that individuals whose brains have the ability to interact with the Old World network are highly valuable to the government. As a result, Akira [[TheyWouldCutYouUp might get dissected]] and be reduced to a brain in a jar if anyone finds out about it.

** A longtime RunningGag on the website is that Magic's Research And Development department is run by Gleemax, a literal BrainInAJar. Which even has its own (not tournament-legal) [[http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=73947 card]]. The gag, by the way, dates back to at least the February 1998 issue of the long-defunct ''Duelist'' magazine, in which Mark Rosewater explains the 'Top Ten Myths About Magic R&D' -- the myth about Gleemax is listed as #1, and it's not quite clear from context whether [=MaRo=] refers to an ''actual'' earlier myth or is just throwing in a red herring on the fly.
** Also, [[http://magiccards.info/query?q=!Psychosis+Crawler the Psychosis Crawler]], a brain in a tank of fluid mounted on a SpiderTank. The abundant space in the vat and the card's flavor text imply that more than one brain might find its way into that jar.

** No longer content to merely beat around the bush, ''Shadows over Innistrad'' goes for broke and includes a card directly named "[[http://magiccards.info/soi/en/252.html Brain in a Jar]]".
* The Brain In A Jar is an enemy in ''[[TabletopGame/{{Munchkin}} Star Munchkin.]]''
* ''Lord Slogar'', one of the characters in the card game ''TabletopGame/{{Gloom}}'' is a brain in a jar. Presumably his condition is the result of an experiment by his MadScientist wife, Helena.

** The futuristic sports team The Harlem Heroes suffered a crash in their first adventure. One member became a brain in a jar as a result.

* [[spoiler:Ricky Verona]] in ''Film/CrankHighVoltage''.
* One of the characters in ''Run Ronnie Run'' ends up this way.

* The uncle of the two murderous cannibals masquerading as vegetarian chefs in the weird horror-comedy ''Film/BloodDiner'' is reduced to one of these (complete with eyeballs). He still orders them around to put together a body for some evil goddess out of all the girls they've killed. We said this was a weird film.
* One of the characters in ''Film/TammyAndTheTRex'' ends up as a brain in a pan.
* In the movie ''Film/TheManWithTwoBrains'', Creator/SteveMartin is a neurosurgeon who encounters and communicates with a lady's brain.
* ''Film/TankGirl''. According to one of the animated sequences, Tank Girl's tank is controlled by one of these.
* For the premiere of ''Film/FiendWithoutAFace'', the producers had one of the brain creature puppets displayed in a glass case at the theater. It was even rigged to wiggle around, and they claimed it was a real surviving "fiend" from the movie that had been captured.

* As the TropeCodifier, in ''TabletopGame/CallOfCthulhu'' this is the usual fate of anybody who gets on the wrong side of Mi-Go. That's not to say that they did it to you because you pissed them off; that just gets them to kill you. No, they slice out your brain and put it in a jar if they ''[[BlueAndOrangeMorality like]]'' you. The resulting brain cylinder can survive in Yuggoth's hostile atmosphere and be plugged into external devices allowing it to "see", "hear", and speak, but being sapient fungus monsters with a radically different physiology from humans, Mi-Go don't have the best grasp of human senses.

** Mind Flayers, aka the Illithid race, has as the leaders Elder Brains. Gigantic Brains in Jars. With Psionic powers. These are created from the brains of a few illithids, the first to die in a colony, and others are added to the pool later when possible, as a sort of immortality. They can also do this to mortal brains with particularily interesting thoughts (that aren't eaten). This whole trope is basically their [[PlanetOfHats hat]].

** TabletopGame/{{Ravenloft}} got a brain in a jar, salvaged alive from an accident victim by Dr. Frankenstein {{Expy}}, it's a mind-controlling criminal mastermind in Dementlieu.
** TabletopGame/ForgottenRealms has mind flayers of Oryndoll storing many brains of those they thought knew too much, alive and available for telepathic probing as a "library". Presumably, their own divine Elder Brain could absorb all this, but then it would be pestered with unimportant questions.
** ''Magazine/{{Dungeon}}'' magazine #44 adventure "Raiders of the Chanth". The Chanth is a giant brain that is the magical combination of the brains of a man, a dwarf, an elf, a halfling, and a thri-kreen. It exists inside a sphere of glass under the effect of a ''Glassteel'' spell. It is extremely dangerous due to its extensive psionic powers.
* The TabletopGame/{{Pathfinder}} adventure module ''Wake Of The Watchers'' features a "brain archive" containing several of these.
** Part of the "Reign of Winter" Adventure Path takes place on Earth circa 1918, where the party will encounter brain-driven Mk. V tanks.
* ''TabletopGame/GammaWorld''. Borgs, Permanent Cybernetic Installations and Think Tanks in 1st Edition. Borgs in 2nd Edition.

* ''TabletopGame/MutantsAndMasterminds'':
** The game had one as a sample villain.
** Second edition had it as a potential villain archetype.
** First edition, using the META-4 universe, had the Atomic Brain who was a former Manhattan Project researcher whose brain survived the explosion of an experiment. A combination of resentment at Oppenheimer taking credit for the atomic bomb and frustration over a lack of limbs led to the Atomic Brain becoming a supervillain. However, Atomic Brain's... brain... floated above his robotic body.
* Full-conversion {{Cyborg}}s in ''{{TabletopGame/Rifts}}'' are basically brains and a few vital organs wired into a robotic body.

** This is how full cyborg conversion works.

* The protagonist of ''VideoGame/TheDaedalusEncounter'' is grievously wounded in the intro cutscene, and revived as a "brain in a box" remote-controling a flying probe with a manipulator arm.

* The Clockwork King in ''VideoGame/CityOfHeroes'' is a BrainInAJar mounted on a mechanical frame he operates telekinetically.

* The [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GBVCi0PmW24 Clinical Immortality]] secret project from ''VideoGame/SidMeiersAlphaCentauri''. Though this technically included the spinal column, and ''eyes''. The movie gets its chills from the eyes just staring at you. The Bioenhancement Center facility, when constructed, gives you the page quote.

** Across all Fallout games is the Robobrain, a robot that has an organic brain as a CPU - notable in the fact that none of the brain's original thoughts are present (it is said that the brains used range from Chimpanzees to Humans).
** In ''VideoGame/{{Fallout Tactics|BrotherhoodOfSteel}}'', Vault 0 is run by the Calculator [[spoiler: combined with a series of brains in jars, supposedly from the best and brightest, though as a joke the brains seem rather shallow--the politician, for example, is clearly modeled on Bill Clinton, and there's a porn star brain.]] In order to win the game [[spoiler: you have to destroy all the brains and then confront the Calculator, who offers you the chance to join your own brain to it and thereby bring order to the chaos of the Calculator's damaged mind. General Barnaky, already a brain in a jar on top of a robot, also offers himself]]. Depending on what kind of game you played, or whether you take up one or other offer or refuse it and just let the counter run down, the game ending changes.
** Skynet from ''VideoGame/{{Fallout 2}}''. Although he's technically an AI that wants to conquer the world, you bring him out into the world through a cybernetic brain inside a Brain Bot. You can also end up bringing a Chimp or normal human brain instead, but that isn't quite as good. Or you can use an [[Film/YoungFrankenstein abnormal brain]], which will render him TheLoad, too stupid to do anything but carry items (including comprehending that it's been fired). The only way to get this version of Skynet out of your party (thus making room for someone actually ''useful'') is to kill it.
** ''VideoGame/{{Fallout 3}}'':

** ''VideoGame/FalloutNewVegas'': the FetchQuest "Nothin' but a Hound Dog" involves help [[ElvisImpersonator The King]] get medical help for his pet cyberdog, Rex. [[spoiler: You find out that the life support for his brain has been damaged, and while it can be repaired, his brain was permanently damaged and has to be replaced. Successfully completing the mission getting a new brain for Rex from one of three dog trainers.]]

** ''Videogame/{{Fallout 4}}''

* In ''VideoGame/BrainDead13'', the MadScientist villain is one of these.
* The alien mastermind in ''VideoGame/XComUFODefense''.
** The Bio-Drones of ''VideoGame/XComTerrorFromTheDeep'', [[DemonicSpiders only their jars can hover anywhere it wants, are hard to hit, can take quite a bit of damage, come equipped with highly accurate weapons, and explode with a huge radius upon death]]. Oh, and if you research them, you find out that some of them are human brains that have been butchered to obedience by the aliens.
* Doctor Brackman of ''VideoGame/SupremeCommander'' made himself into a brain in a jar to stay alive after his nominal death. One thousand years of constant warfare later, and he's still going strong as the leader and father of the Cybran Nation.

* Several enemies in the ''VideoGame/{{Quake}}'' series, notably [[VideoGame/QuakeII the Parasites, the Flyers, and the Technicians]], the latter who is a literal brain-in-a-jar controlling a flying-saucer-like machine.

* The protagonist of ''VideoGame/DeadHeadFred'' is killed and reanimated in this form at the beginning of the game, though he is at least attached to his original body. His... predicament lets him switch his head with other things, each with their own gameplay uses.

* Medula from ''ComicBook/MollyDanger'' has a robotic body, with his brain in a jar full of green liquid located where his head would be.

* [[spoiler: The true nature of [[MyFutureSelfAndMe Future Calvin]]]] in ''Fanfic/CalvinAndHobbesTheSeries''.

** In ''VideoGame/{{Fallout Tactics|BrotherhoodOfSteel}}'', Vault 0 is run by the Calculator [[spoiler: combined with a series of if brains in jars, supposedly from the best and brightest, though as a joke the brains seem rather shallow--the politician, for example, is clearly modeled on Bill Clinton, and there's a porn star brain.]] In order to win the game [[spoiler: you have to destroy all the brains and then confront the Calculator, who offers you the chance to join your own brain to it and thereby bring order to the chaos of the Calculator's damaged mind. General Barnaky, already a brain in a jar on top of a robot, also offers himself]]. Depending on what kind of game you played, or whether you take up one or other offer or refuse it and just let the counter run down, the game ending changes.

* The [[BodyHorror Kedora]] from ''Anime/MazingerZ'' and ''Anime/GreatMazinger''. Creator/KenIshikawa one-shot "The Relic of Evil" revealed that [[spoiler: the Mykene controlled his {{Robeast}} by grafting the brain of a soldier taught to destroy all no Mykene civilizations into a parasitic organism, and it fused with a robot, giving the Mykene soldier complete control.]] They would show up later in ''Anime/ShinMazinger''.

* In ''Webcomic/{{Narbonic}}'', the AlternateFuture version of [[spoiler:Helen Narbon]] is a brain in a large vat.

* ''Donovan's Brain'', an adaptation of the novel, in which an evil millionaire's life is saved via removing his brain from his crippled body and preserving it in a tank of an electrified saline solution; however, Donovan's evil will allows him to begin remotely controlling the doctor who saved him. In this version, the brain is ultimately destroyed in a house fire.

* The uncle of the two murderous cannibals masquerading as vegetarian chefs in the weird horror-comedy ''Blood Diner'' is reduced to one of these (complete with eyeballs). He still orders them around to put together a body for some evil goddess out of all the girls they've killed. We said this was a weird film.

* In the 1960 Mexican science fiction comedy ''Conquistador de la Luna (Conqueror of the Moon)'', the "Great Brain of Mars" (don't ask) is literally a giant brain in a jar, with an abstract art depiction of a Martian underneath him, and a voice box and an eye on a stalk to communicate.

** In ''VideoGame/Psychonauts2'', Otto Mentalis's Brainframe is filled with preserved brains in jars, many of which represent the backers of the game, [[spoiler: and one of which is entered as a level.]] There are also a couple of mobile brains in hamster balls that wander around the Motherlobe.

* According to the [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boltzmann_brain Boltzmann brain]] hypothesis, if one considers the probability of our current situation as self-aware entities embedded in an organized environment, versus the probability of stand-alone self-aware entities existing in a featureless thermodynamic "soup", then the latter should be vastly more probable than the former if both scenarios are to be created out of random fluctuation. As that is something very [[MindScrew Mind Screwy]], and even more when one considers the possibility of other universes existing, solutions to that paradox include the possibility of the fabric of the Universe being metastable and degrading after a [[TimeAbyss really very long time]], so no Boltzmann brains appearing of nowhere-same for other universes should they exist.

** The website ''English Russia'', who took the pictures used in the article, notes that it was a place to study brains and the nervous system. It was shuttered due [[WhyWeAreBummedCommunismFell Russia's abysmal economic situation after the collapse of the Soviet Union.]] The only thing rather ominous about is that the scientist went to some rather extreme lengths to keep everyone out of there, so much so that no one successfully broke in for upwards of fifteen years. They could have just been trying to assure their research was found by the right people though.
* A ''functioning'' brain in a jar would be surprisingly difficult to accomplish in real life, at least without major personality changes -- to the point of possibly no longer having a recognizably human outlook - since any number of hormonal and even metabolic functions performed in other parts of the body contribute significantly to brain function.

* The head of Luigi Lucheni - the assassin of Empress Elisabeth of Austria - sat in the morgue of Geneva (where the crime took place and where Lucheni was imprisoned) from his [[DrivenToSuicide death by hanging]] in 1910 to 1986, upon which it was taken to the Museum of Pathology and Anatomy in Vienna, with the condition that it was not to be displayed. It's perfectly preserved in formaldehyde. His head was preserved because, allegedly, experts of the time wanted to study the criminal mind. The modern-day Geneva Morgue, however, was more than happy to be rid of it. He was finally buried in 2000 at the Zentralfriedhof (Central Cemetery) in Vienna, after a long, bureaucratical process.

* As the TropeCodifier, in ''TabletopGame/CallOfCthulhu'' this is the usual fate of anybody who gets on the wrong side of Mi-Go. That's not to say they did it to you because you pissed them off; they just kill you. No, they slice out your brain and put it in a jar if they ''[[BlueAndOrangeMorality like]]'' you. The resulting brain cylinder can survive in Yuggoth's hostile atmosphere and be plugged into external devices allowing it to "see", "hear" and speak, but being sapient fungus monsters with a radicaly different physiology from humans, Mi-Go don't have the best grasp of human senses.

** Mind Flayers, aka the Illithid race has as the leaders Elder Brains. Gigantic Brains in Jars. With Psionic powers. These are created from the brains of a few illithids first to die in a colony and others are added to the pool later when possible, as a sort of immortality. They can also do this to mortal brains with particularily interesting thoughts (that aren't eaten). This whole trope is basically their [[PlanetOfHats hat]].

** ''Magazine/{{Dungeon}}'' magazine #44 adventure "Raiders of the Chanth". The Chanth is a giant brain that is the magical combination of the brains of a man, a dwarf, an elf, a halfling and a thri-kreen. It exists inside a sphere of glass under the effect of a ''Glassteel'' spell. It is extremely dangerous due to its extensive psionic powers.

** The game has a disadvantage called "No Physical Body" which turns you into this. You're immobile and anybody who interacts with you is likely to recoil in horror. So it kinda sucks, except that it gives you a ton of character points you can spend on magic/psionic powers or other mental abilities.

** [[Recap/DoctorWhoS13E5TheBrainOfMorbius "The Brain of Morbius"]] features the titular brain as a miserable, paranoid, suicidal organ who feels his current existence is AFateWorseThanDeath and continually [[{{Wangst}} explains this]] [[LargeHam loudly]] to the surgeon who put him in this state. It's supposed to be a temporary measure before Morbius can be placed in a body, but he's been stuck in there for years due to a lack of a suitable [[OrganTheft head donor]]. Until the Doctor arrives...

** [[Recap/DoctorWhoS28E5RiseOfTheCybermen "Rise of the Cybermen"]]/[[Recap/DoctorWhoS28E6TheAgeOfSteel "The Age of Steel"]]: The parallel universe Cybermen are brains transplanted into a mechanical suit of armour. The suit [[EmptyShell represses the brain's emotions]], since the brains tend to react [[GoMadFromTheRevelation poorly to being in their jar.]]

** This is the ultimate fate of Lister in "[[Recap/RedDwarfSeasonVIOutOfTime Out of Time]]", where the future versions of the main cast visit via a Time Drive the characters had only recently found by that point. However this is initially kept a secret from present-day Lister, and present-day Kryten, the {{secret keeper}}, is on the point of tears when he finds out, leading Lister to believe that he had been killed instead.

* ''Series/{{Andromeda}}''" [=AIs=] can't use their FasterThanLightTravel, relying on organics to get them to their destination within a century. To get around this, several automated systems are using WetwareAI systems such as this.

** The security robot B.O.X. in ''VideoGame/MetroidFusion'' contains a brain in its cybermechanical spider-like body. The fact that it has a nonmechanical brain doesn't seem to have any specific practical applications as far as robotics goes. However, it serves as a justification for the robot fighting Samus: a semi-organic robot being infected by the X-Parasites makes more sense than [[GiantSpaceFleaFromNowhere some random security robot that spontaneously goes rogue in the midst of a hostile takeover by an alien virus]].

* ''VideoGame/OperatorsSide'': Also known as ''Lifeline'': [[spoiler: Rio's father, whom she had thought dead]], has become this. His brain was recovered and was being used to [[spoiler:further research into the PhilosophersStone. Major, major TearJerker moment when Rio finds out and he asks to be shut down.]]