About Brain Banks Depositories
Brain donation for research is not a widely publicized subject, so
many physicians and pathologists are not familiar with brain banking. Contacting the pathologists at your local hospital
and identifying the professionals in your area who are sensitive to the need for brain donation can greatly facilitate the
donation process.
The brain may be disease-free or it may be from an individual who
has died in the early, middle, or late stage of a particular disease. Researchers from around the country contact brain banks
regularly to find brain tissue that fits a specific criteria for their research. Please be sure to ask your neurologist
if the facility he/she is affiliated with has a Brain Bank. You can then get information regarding the specific protocol and
steps to take regarding brain donation at a facility that may be more convenient and closer to your home.
If you are having trouble identifying a cooperative pathologist, please visit this College
of American Pathologists website to obtain a phone number for those in your community.
Unaffected Brain Donors Needed
The nature of research requires that scientists need "normal" brains, too, from healthy people of all ages.
Brain tissue is essential to research. Techniques like functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) or Positron Emission Tomography
(PET) scan the brains of living people, watching the brain at work. But fMRI and PET can't peer into nerve cells.
Understanding the chemistry of cells in diseased regions of the brain what proteins are present, which genes
are active can help scientists determine what went wrong, and develop diagnostic tests and treatments.
"The problem is that families with members who have a brain
disease are working with private foundations and already thinking about brain donation and research and so it is easier to
reach out to them," says Benes. "But there is no foundation that advocates for a normal brain." Francine Benes, is a
professor of neuroscience at Harvard Medical School in Boston and their Brain bank's director.
The ideal normal brain, according to Benes, comes from an individual
without a history of head trauma, seizure, dementia, delirium, or drug or alcohol abuse.
