UKCRC Brain Bank Strategy: Renewal of Newcastle brain tissue resource

像老年痴呆症这样的神经系统疾病？抑郁症等精神疾病影响着英国的大量人群，也是发达国家的一些主要健康负担。例如，Alzheimer？英国有超过40万人受到这种疾病的影响，预计未来几年患有这种疾病的人数将大幅增加。虽然我们对影响大脑功能的疾病的理解已经取得了相当大的进展，但我们仍然需要确定根本原因，以便我们能够找到新的治疗方法。在死亡时从捐赠者那里收集脑组织是我们调查精神病和退行性疾病发展的极少数方法之一。通常不可能从活体捐赠者身上获取脑组织，动物模型只能模拟人类疾病的某些方面。因此，死后组织研究是我们了解的最佳途径。通过研究这些组织样本，有可能确定引起阿尔茨海默病等疾病的变化。帕金森氏病？抑郁症和运动神经元疾病。该项目的目的是从尽可能广泛的神经和精神疾病捐赠者那里收集脑组织，通过与英国医学研究理事会合作管理的广泛网络分发给国家和国际研究界。这将确保对样本进行尽可能多的研究项目，从而增加确定这些疾病治疗方法的机会。这将通过从相似年龄的正常个体收集组织来补充，以便进行比较。所有捐赠者都将在公认的专科诊所接受治疗，并在被告知所有程序后，同意在死亡前捐赠组织。近亲和其他有关各方将参加这些讨论。该项目已获得正式的伦理批准，多年来我们一直向患者及其家属提出此类要求，未出现任何不良反应。事实上，大多数人都认为这是一个很好的机会，可以为一项重要的研究工作做出贡献。我们的长期目标是尽可能广泛地促进神经和精神疾病脑研究国家方案，并促进我们对这些疾病原因的了解，长期目标是确定治疗方法。

Neurological disorders such as Alzheimer?s disease and psychiatric disorders such as major depression affect large numbers of individuals in the UK and represent some of the major health burdens in developed countries. For example Alzheimer?s affects over 400,000 people in the UK and the numbers of people with the disorder are expected to rise substantially in coming years. Whilst considerable advances have been made in our understanding of disorders that affect brain function, we still need to identify the underlying causes so that we can find new treatments. Collection of brain tissue from donors at death represents one of the very few ways that we can investigate the development of psychiatric and degenerative disorders. It is not generally possible to take brain tissue from live donors and animal models can only mimic certain aspects of the human disorder. Post mortem tissue research is therefore our best avenue to understanding. By studying such tissue samples it is possible to identify the changes that give rise to conditions such as Alzheimer?s disease, Parkinson?s disease, depression and motor neurone disease. This project aims to collect brain tissue from donors from as wide as possible a range of neurological and psychiatric disorders for distribution to both the national and international research community through a wide network managed in collaboration with the UK Medical Research Council. This will ensure that as many research projects as possible can be undertaken on the samples thereby increasing the opportunities for identifying treatments for these disorders. This will be complemented by the collection of tissue from normal individuals of a similar age so that comparisons can be made. All donors will have been seen in a recognised specialist clinic and will have agreed to donate tissue before their death, having been informed of all procedures. Next of kin and other involved parties will be included in these discussions. The project has already received formal Ethical Approval and we have been making this type of request to patients and their families for many years without experiencing any adverse reactions. Indeed most people find this a welcome opportunity to contribute to an important research effort. Our long term aim is to contribute as widely as possible to the national programme of brain research into neurological and psychiatric disorders and advance our understanding of the causes of these disorders, with the long term aim of identifying treatments.