Brain banking

International Conference and Exhibition on Tissue Preservation & Bio-banking

July 20-22, 2015 Barcelona, Spain

Isidro Ferrer

Posters-Accepted Abstracts: J Tissue Sci Eng

Abstract :

Brain banks have been created to obtain, classify, preserve and distribute nervous system tissue and biological samples for research of diseases of the nervous system under very precise ethical and legal settings. Handling nervous tissue has many peculiarities. Brain banks should be monitored by specialized personnel including at least one Neuropathologist and specialized technicians. The register must include clinical data set, agonic state and post-mortem delay, and complete neuropathological diagnoses, together with material stored. The brain is removed from the skull following well-established protocols, and it is usually cut in the middle sagittal plane and both cerebral hemispheres separated. The cerebrum is separated from the brain stem above the superior colliculi, the cerebellum separated from the brain stem by cutting the cerebellar peduncles, and the cerebellum divide by the vermis. One cerebral hemisphere is used for biochemical studies and the other is immersed in 4% buffered formalin for morphological studies. For biochemical studies, small pieces of representative regions of the brain are frozen on metal plaques over dry ice, kept on individual airtight plastic bags and numbered with water-resistant ink or by using appropriate tags. The rest of the fresh cerebrum and cerebellum is frozen on coronal sections, packed in individual plastic bags, labeled, and stored at -80C. Human brain banks are mainly based on nervous tissue obtained after death and, therefore, several factors may interfere with tissue and molecular preservation. Knowledge of the limitations is mandatory when using human post-mortem brain for research.