What is Brain Donation?
We mean the whole brain. The brain is a very complex structure and it is necessary to look at all the different parts of the brain. In some neurological conditions the spinal cord is also essential for the confirmation of diagnosis and research. If this is specifically stated on the consent form, consent to donate spinal cord can be given.
Why Donate?
Despite recent scientific advances, we do not understand enough about how many diseases affect the brain. There are dedicated groups of people both nationally and internationally who have strong interests in studying the brain and the necessary expertise to do so. The ultimate goal of these brain donor programs is to study enough brains to know what is normal and what causes disease to enable effective interventions or even disease prevention.
How is the Tissue Used?
The tissues collected by the NSW TRC is collected, stored, characterised before being provided to both national and international researchers studying different disorders of the brain like alcohol-related brain damage and mental illness, specifically schizophrenia.
While this collection focuses on diseases specifically related to alcohol use and schizophrenia. However, there are also tissues from controls, motor neuron disease, and other neurological and psychiatric conditions.
Tissue requests received by the NSW TRC from researchers are evaluated and approved by scientific advisory committees. Over the past decade the TRC has collected over 500 cases and tissues have been provided to over 270 different projects.
The NSW TRC has sent tissues to a number for research groups world-wide and they have used various pathological, neuro-chemical and molecular techniques, including proteomics and genomics studies with excellent results.
Brain Banks
Using Our Brains (UoB) (for healthy controls and alcohol disorders)
This program is designed to collect and store brain tissue from a broad cross-section of the community for distribution to leading neuroscience researchers. Only by having tissue from all types of people, from all walks of life, can we understand what the tissue of the brain looks like normally. You may think that such information is well known, but it is not. It is this type of tissue and information which is currently most needed for breakthroughs in medical research.
Gift of Hope (GoH) (for schizophrenia and bipolar disorder)
This program is designed to collect, store and distribute fixed and frozen brain tissue that is well characterised both clinically and pathologically for projects related to schizophrenia. The focus for the collection is cases with schizophrenia, however tissue from normal control cases and other major psychiatric disorders are also collected to provide important comparative groups.
Motor Neuron Disease (MND) (for MND and control tissues and DNA)
Donors suffering from Motor Neuron Disease can sign up through the UoB program. Donors are also invited to supply a blood sample for DNA research.
Sydney Brain Bank (for Dementia, Parkinson's and related neurological disorders such as MSA and Alzheimer's disease)
These programs are designed to collect and store fixed and frozen brain tissue from patients with dementia, Parkinson's and allied disorders. This program also enrols healthy controls. The tissue and the medical information from each individual is collected in order to identify the causes of these diseases. Again, although the focus for the collection is cases with dementia, tissue from normal control cases is vital to provide important comparative groups. People enrolling in this program may also be asked to participate in other types of research, like blood test development, or determining the risk in families.
Multiple Sclerosis Research Australia (MSRA) (for MS sufferers)
This donor program is designed to collect, store and distribute brain and other neural tissue for Multiple Sclerosis (MS) research that will increase our understanding of the disease. It's neither
too early or too late to consider it: younger or older people with MS are encouraged to register
as donors.