The objective of the Netherlands Brain Bank (NBB) is to supply the international scientific community with clinically and neuropathologically well-documented brain tissue of high quality. Our ultimate goal is to increase the knowledge on how the human brain works and to make treatment of brain diseases possible, by means of creating a better understanding of the human brain and the etiology and pathological mechanisms of neurological and psychiatric diseases.

The specimens collected by the NBB are obtained from donors with a variety of brain diseases. These include Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease, Lewy body disease, vascular dementia, Pick’s disease, frontotemporal dementia, multiple sclerosis (MS), multiple system atrophy, progressive supranuclear palsy, and to a lesser extent Down’s syndrome, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, motor neuron disease, Huntington’s disease, depression, bipolar disorders and schizophrenia. Furthermore, the NBB can supply samples from controls without neurological or psychiatric history. The specimens have a short post-mortem delay, mostly ranging from 2 to 10 hours.

The tissue will come accompanied by extensive and anonymized background donor information, such as the neuropathological report and a summary of their medical history. Furthermore, if requested, the tissue is matched for many ante-mortem parameters (e.g. age, sex, time and season of death, agonal state, pH) and post-mortem parameters (post-mortem delay, freezing or fixation procedure, storage time).

Contribution
The costs to procure, characterize, handle and provide tissue are very high and the NBB is almost completely dependent upon grants and donations. Therefore the researcher is asked to give a financial contribution to compensate for these costs.

Autopsy protocol
During the autopsy approximately 18 brain areas are dissected, that are used for the neuropathological diagnosis. These areas are fixated in buffered formalin for a month, after which the further dissection takes place.

Which other areas are dissected and the way they are treated (fixed, frozen, in culture medium) depends on the clinical diagnosis and the applications from the researchers.

For more information on our procedures, we would like to refer you to our Information for Tissue Applicants.