Brain banking is an important resource for the study of many diseases and disorders. There are currently several brain and tissue banks all over the world that focus specifically on Parkinson's disease and/or Alzheimer's disease research.
Listed below are brain banks that collect Parkinson's Disease brains across the United States. This information was extracted from a larger list located on the link to the NINDS Brain Bank Site that primarily focuses on Alzheimer's disease.
ARIZONA
Sun Health Research Institute
10515 W. Santa Fe Drive
Sun City, AZ 85351
Phone: (623) 876-5328
SHRI Home: http://www.shri.org/index.cfm
Info on Brain Donation: http://www.shri.org/brainbank/
Scientists at Sun Health Research Institute have had a significant impact on how physicians diagnose and treat diseases such as Alzheimer's, Parkinson's and arthritis. Founded in 1986, the Institute is one of just 29 national Alzheimer's Disease Core Centers in the nation. One key to the successes at the Institute has been its Brain Donation Program, which has provided researchers in Sun City and around the world with brain tissue to aid in their search for the cause and cure of those diseases.
CALIFORNIA
Human Brain and Spinal and Spinal Fluid Resource Center VA West Los Angeles Healthcare Center
11301 Wilshire Blvd
Los Angeles, CA 90073
Phone: (310) 268-3536
Fax: (310) 268-4768 Web: http://www.loni.ucla.edu/uclabrainbank
The Human Brain and Spinal Fluid Resource Center (Center) was established in 1961 to provide a vital service to neuroscientists. The Center collects, cryogenically stores, and distributes donated tissue to research scientists around the world. Collection occurs through their "Gift of Hope" anatomical donor program which accepts tissue donation from people with neurological/psychiatric disorders. These disorders include Alzheimer's Disease, Parkinson's Disease, multiple sclerosis, and many others as well as individuals without neurological/psychiatric disorders. The Center is a consortium of two banks, the Neurological and Psychiatric Disorders Bank and the Multiple Sclerosis Human Neurospecimen Bank.
ILLINOIS
Center for Alzheimer's Disease and Related Disorders
PO Box 19643
Southern Illinois School of Medicine
Springfield, IL 62794-9643
Phone: (217) 545-8249
Fax: (217) 545-1903
Web: http://www.siumed.edu/cadrd/cadrd.html
The SIU Center for Alzheimer Disease and Related Disorders (CADRD) was established in 1987 when the Illinois legislature mandated two regional Alzheimer disease assistance centers. Of the two centers established as a result, CADRD serves rural Illinois, a total of 93 counties. The second, Rush Medical Center, serves the greater Chicago area (Cook county and the 8 collar counties). A third center, Northwestern Alzheimer's Disease Center was added through legislation in 1997 and also serves the greater Chicago area. Doctors working at CADRD study and treat patients suffering from Parkinson disease, and devote considerable time and effort to the study of other disorders affecting older people, including locomotor disorders (gait disturbances) and tremor. CADRD:
- Provides clinical services to patients and their families
- Supports research through a brain bank autopsy program
- Provides educational services to both medical professionals and lay persons
Brain Endowment Bank
Department of Neurology
University of Miami School of Medicine
1501 North West 9th Avenue
Miami, FL 33136
Telephone: (800) 862 7246
Fax: (305) 548 4678
Dept of Neurology Web: http://neurology.med.miami.edu/
The Department of Neurology is home to the Brain Endowment Bank, which conducts clinical and basic research of the human brain including Parkinson's disease and other movement disorders, drug addiction, and aging; the Sleep Disorders Center, which provides a wide range of services for individuals with sleep related disturbances; and the International Center for Epilepsy, to name a few. Headed by Deborah Mash, Ph.D., professor, director of research, and Levey Chair in Parkinson's Disease Research, the bank's research team educates the public about the importance of brain donation as a permanent and invaluable research resource. The donor base includes normal and diseased brains from individuals with neurodegenerative and neuropsychiatric disorders.
Information on the Brain Endowment Bank can be found: http://neurology.med.miami.edu/research_div_basic_research.asp.
MARYLAND
Brain Resource Center (BRC)
Johns Hopkins University, School of Medicine
Department of Pathology, Division of Neuropathology
558 Ross Building
720 Rutland Avenue
Baltimore, MD 21205
Tel: (410) 955-5632
Fax: (410) 955-9777
The Brain Resource Center (BRC) is a brain repository at the Division of Neuropathology of the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. The BRC has been in operation since the early 1980s and its main mission is to conduct neuropathological autopsies, provide neuropathological diagnoses, and prepare, store, and distribute postmortem tissues for research purposes. Originally, the BRC focused predominantly on cases from the Alzheimer's Disease Research Center, but subsequently it became the brain repository for autopsies of control and diseased subjects from the Baltimore Longitudinal Study of Aging, the Johns Hopkins Center for Huntington's Disease, and Morris K. Udall Parkinson's Disease Research Center of Excellence. The current inventory of the BRC includes 487 cases from the Alzheimer's Disease Research Center, of which 361 have frozen samples, 182 cases from the Parkinson's Center and 294 cases of Huntington's disease.
MASSACHUSETTS
Harvard Brain Tissue Resource Center
McLean Hospital
115 Mill St.
Belmont, Ma 02178
Phone: 1-800-272-4622 (information on donations)
Alternate Phone: (617) 855-2400
Fax: (617) 855-3199
Web: http://www.brainbank.mclean.org/
The Harvard Brain Tissue Resource Center has been established at McLean Hospital as a centralized resource for the collection and distribution of human brain specimens for brain research.
NEW YORK
New York Brain Bank
Columbia University
3959 Broadway
New York, NY 10032
Telephone: (212) 305-2299
Fax: (212) 342-0083
Web: http://www.nybb.hs.columbia.edu/
The New York Brain Bank (NYBB) at Columbia University was established to collect postmortem human brains to meet the needs of neuroscientists investigating specific psychiatric and neurological disorders.
NORTH CAROLINA
Kathleen Price Bryan Brain Bank
Joseph and Kathleen Bryan Alzheimer's Disease Research Center
Division of Neurology, Department of Medicine
Duke University Medical Center
2200 W. Main Street, Suite A230
Box 3503 DUMC
Durham, NC 27705
Phone: (866) 444-2372 (919) 416-5388
Web: http://adrc.mc.duke.edu/BB.htm
The Kathleen Price Bryan Brain Bank is a repository of nearly 1200 human brains that contains approximately 750 brains from patients with Alzheimer's Disease and related dementing disorders and 250 brains with other neurological disorders such as Parkinson's Disease, Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis, Huntington's Disease and Muscular Dystrophy. Approximately 200 Normal Control Brains are available.
OREGON
Oregon Brain Bank
Division of Pathology, L-113
Neuropath Section
Oregon Health & Science University
3181 S.W. Sam Jackson Park Rd.
Portland, OR 97239
Phone: (503) 494-6923
Web: http://www.ohsu.edu/pathology/win/MainOBBIndex.htm
The Organ Brain Bank was established in 1990 with the assistance of the Alzheimer's Research Alliance of Oregon. The bank serves two main functions; first to provide a neuropathologic diagnosis of organic dementia's in a cohort of NIH sponsored research subjects and second to harvest, bank and disperse postmortem tissue for use in neurodegenerative research. Although the focus is on Alzheimer's, tissue from patients with Huntington's, Parkinson's, Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis, Multiple Sclerosis, Controls and other disorders are also available.
PENNSYLVANIA
Alzheimer's Disease and Dementia Center
Department of Neurology
Thomas Jefferson University
834 Chestnut Street, Suite 420
Philadelphia, PA 19107
Phone: (215) 955-6692
Web: http://www.jeffersonhospital.org
Jefferson's Alzheimer's Disease and Dementia Center is a major referral center in the Delaware Valley. The Center provides comprehensive and individualized diagnostic services and therapeutic options to patients with various types of dementia. Patients evaluated at the Center may suffer from Alzheimer's disease, Parkinson's disease, stroke, cancer, infections, head trauma and other degenerative central nervous system conditions. In addition to its clinical programs, the Center is involved in a number of basic science research projects that are advancing fundamental knowledge on these dementing disorders, while pursuing new treatment modalities. It also provides educational programs for patient's families and caregivers. The Center includes a brain bank that receives brains for diagnostic and research purposes.
National Disease Research Interchange
8 Penn Center
8th Floor
1628 John F. Kennedy Blvd.
Philadelphia PA 19103
Phone: (800) 222-NDRI (6374) (215) 557-7361
Fax: (215) 557-7154
Web: http://www.ndriresource.org/index.html
Our mission is to serve scientists with customized biomaterials for use in studies to understand human disease. Human cells, tissues, and organs are required to investigate how human disease progresses and to develop new drugs and therapies for treatments and cures.
Center for Neurodegenerative Disease Research
University of Pennsylvania Health System
Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine
University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine
3rd Floor Maloney Building
3600 Spruce St.
Philadelphia, PA 19104
Phone: (215) 662-4708
Fax: (215) 349-5909
Web: http://www.uphs.upenn.edu/cndr/index.html
The mission of the Center for Neurodegenerative Disease Research (CNDR) is to conduct multidisciplinary clinical and basic research studies that increase understanding of the causes and mechanisms that increase understanding of the causes and mechanisms leading to brain dysfunction and degeneration in Alzheimer's Disease (AD), Parkinson's Disease (PD), Motor Neuron Disease and other less common neurodegenerative disorders that also occur with more frequently with advancing age.
Brain Tissue Donation Program
University of Pittsburgh Medical Center
Translational Neuroscience Program
Department of Psychiatry
3811 O'Hara St.
Biomedical Science Tower W1650
Pittsburgh, PA 15213
Phone: (412) 624-7802
Web: http://cortex.psychiatry.pitt.edu/research/cnmdframe_mb.htm
The Department of Psychiatry at the University of Pittsburgh has established a brain tissue bank to which brain tissue can be donated at no expense.