Amanda They are lucky to get your brain. Ray Rayilyn Brown Director AZNPF Arizona Chapter National Parkinson Foundation [log in to unmask] ----- Original Message ----- From: <[log in to unmask]> To: <[log in to unmask]> Sent: Monday, September 01, 2008 5:18 AM Subject: Re: Man with 250 Brains I took a tour of the brain bank 2 years ago - the labs are surprisingly ordinary-looking places for somewhere doing such valuable work. Of course I agreed to donate my brain. (A relative said he was surprised anyone wanted it ! ) Quoting rayilynlee <[log in to unmask]>: > From The Times > August 30, 2008 > > Meet the man with 250 brains > David Dexter uses donated brains to unlock the secrets of Parkinson's > disease > > John Naish > David Dexter pulls from under his lab desk a small lidded bucket, the type > that DIY stores use to sell bumper packs of filler. Inside, floating in > clear fluid, is a human brain: grey, cold, murky. "This is quite a > lightweight one," he says, fishing it into his purple-gloved grasp. "When > they first come in they are fresh and pink. This has been soaking in > fixative for four weeks." For squeamish laypersons like me, it feels a > vaguely macabre way to tackle one of the most common diseases of ageing. > Dexter, a quiet, shaven-headed scientist, is the man with 251 brains. And > he > > would love it if you gave him yours - once you've finished using it. He is > the scientific director of the Parkinson's Disease Society Tissue Bank, at > Imperial College London. The bank is at the leading edge of British > efforts > to discover the causes and cures for this debilitating neurological > disorder. > But even highly intelligent clinicians such as Dexter can lack vital grey > matter. The bank collects and dissects for study the brains of people who > have died with Parkinson's. But it needs just as many "control" brains - > those that belong to people who did not apparently have the disease - so > that scientists have a direct counterpart of the Parkinson's brain they > are > studying, in terms of age, gender and time elapsed between death and > preservation. > The bank is funded by the Parkinson's Disease Society at a cost of £25,000 > a > > year. Since it opened five and a half years ago, it has collected 250 > donated brains, only 17 of which are controls. "We are collecting four or > five brains a month. We tend to get a peak on cold winter days and summer > heat waves," Dexter says. "The lack of control brains is our biggest > problem > > because every time we send out tissues, we need to send out control > tissues > as well. His colleague Kirsten Goldring, who manages the donor programme, > adds: "It's odd, but when people sign on with us as controls, they seem to > live for ever." > Related Links > From hair and bone to breast milk and sperm: eight ways to be a living > donor > A race against time > The fact that brain tissue certainly does not last for ever is one of the > greatest practical challenges facing the bank. As an old medical saying > has > it: "After death, of all the soft tissues, the brain's the first to > vanish, > the uterus last." Dexter explains how news of a donor's demise sparks a > race > > against time, geography and bureaucracy. "As soon as someone dies, his or > her brain cells start dying. We need to get the preservation procedure > done > quickly. We need to get the brain into the lab within 24 hours. Our > co-ordinator is on call 24 hours every day. We've managed to get brains to > London on time from places such as Northern Ireland and Jersey." For that > to > > happen, all the paperwork must be in order. "It can be infuriating if we > don't make it because, for example, a locum doctor only 50 miles down the > road won't sign the death certificate and wants to wait until the > patient's > usual GP is found," says Dexter. The process is expedited if the donor's > kin > > know of his or her wishes. The programme has its own donor cards; standard > organ-donor cards do not cover brains as they are not going to be used > clinically in transplants. > Anna Lowe, 31, a management consultant living in Balham, South London, is > one of the latest non-Parkinson's patients to decide to donate her brain. > "My grandfather died three weeks ago at the age of 78," she says. "I had > never thought about donating, but just before he died I learnt of his > plans. > > He had agreed to donate his brain about three years ago. The awareness of > the brain bank motivated me to do it, too. He had told his wife about it, > and he had all the right documents lodged. My grandfather was a retired > psychiatrist and had treated people with Parkinson's. When he was > diagnosed > with it, he was very interested to keep up with all the latest research, > and > > that's how he learnt about the work of the tissue bank." > Lowe, whose grandfather's condition was diagnosed about seven years ago, > believes that this decision to donate has proved a comfort to her > grandmother. "It was something that he very much wanted," she says. "He > was > quite prag-matic about the physical body, being a doctor, and he valued > the > research that his brain would help the scientists to do. It was a comfort > to > > all of us that him donating his brain could help others." As for her > decision to donate, "I didn't have to think too much about it," she says. > "If I'm dead, I won't know about it. And I have already signed up as an > organ donor for other bits and pieces. I'm quite young and it seems a long > way off. It feels like something useful I could do. Dying and being a > donor > to help others is a wonderful thing. The most important thing is to tell > your kin so they are aware of your wishes if they are asked for their > consent." > Dissecting brains is a three-person job > Over lunchtime sandwiches, Dexter explains how dissecting a donated brain > quickly and efficiently is a three-person job. The most important section > is > > the substantia nigra, a thumbnail-sized region located at the base of the > brain. On a glass laboratory slide it resembles a flattened-out moth. Here > the vital chemical, dopamine, is synthesised. It is responsible for > creating > > control of our finer physical movements. Dexter shows me how, on a slide > of > a section of a healthy substantia nigra, there is a clear black line where > the dopamine-producing cells are sited. On a slide from a Parkinson's > sufferer's brain, that black line is a light grey smudge. "This is the > main > area affected by Parkinson's," says Dexter, "So you've got lots of > researchers wanting to look at the same small thing." > By comparing Parkinson's brains with normal brains, scientists can tell > which cell-death processes are caused by disease, and which are part of > ageing. This helps scientists to understand the condition better, which > enables them to develop more effective drugs and gene therapies. But > brains > are mysterious things. They come in very different sizes and shapes. The > smallest donated adult brain was 700g. > "The largest was more than twice that size," smiles Dexter. "We do play a > guessing game about the gender, but generally female brains are smaller." > Goldring feels compelled to interject: "They are more compact and better > organised." Regardless of their gender, brains remain something of a > mystery > > to medics while we are still alive. Even a diagnosis of Parkinson's > disease > is often wrong, as Dexter's team frequently discovers. "We do a detailed > neurophysiological assessment of the brain to see whether they really did > have Parkinson's. Only about 70 per cent of the people diagnosed as dying > from the disease actually had it," he says. "Others have conditions such > as > progressive supernuclear palsy. Some have Alzheimer's as well as > Parkinson's: it can be a multitude of syndromes." > Even apparently normal brains can harbour surprises, Dexter adds. "Often > the > > control brains can give us an insight into the pre-symptomatic stages of > Parkinson's. About 7 per cent of people in the general population have > Parkinson's at the pre-clinical stage. But their owners frequently don't > know get to know this, as many of them die of something else before they > ever go on to develop Parkinsonian symptoms." > "We just cut a flap at the back of the head" > I ask Dexter something that fascinates me - whether any people fear that > by > donating their brains, they might lose a part of their souls. He doesn't > see > > this as an issue - and it's not something that will prevent him from > donating his brain. But vanity can prove a potential obstacle, he says: > "Some possible donors are worried that their bodies will be disfigured and > they won't be able to be displayed in an open casket. But looking at the > dead donor's face, you would never know. We just cut a flap at the back of > the head, peel the skin over the top, cut a hole in the top of the skull, > take the brain out, and then put everything back." He mimes the procedure, > then glances at my whitening face and smiles: "Oh," he says, "You're still > having your lunch." > For more information on becoming a donor, contact the UK Parkinson's > Disease > > Society Tissue Bank: 0207-594 9732, [log in to unmask] > www.parkinsons.org.uk > Brains in numbers > 120,000 people with Parkinson's in the UK > 30,000 members of the Parkinson's Disease Society > 600 number of people currently signed up to donate their brains > -80C optimum temperature for preserving a donated brain > > Rayilyn Brown > Director AZNPF > Arizona Chapter National Parkinson Foundation > [log in to unmask] > > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- > To sign-off Parkinsn send a message to: > mailto:[log in to unmask] > In the body of the message put: signoff parkinsn > ---------------------------------------------- This mail sent through http://www.ukonline.net ---------------------------------------------------------------------- To sign-off Parkinsn send a message to: mailto:[log in to unmask] In the body of the message put: signoff parkinsn ---------------------------------------------------------------------- To sign-off Parkinsn send a message to: mailto:[log in to unmask] In the body of the message put: signoff parkinsn