Electronic tracking of human brain samples for research
- 9 July 2008
- journal article
- research article
- Published by Springer Nature in Cell and Tissue Banking
- Vol. 9 (3) , 217-227
- https://doi.org/10.1007/s10561-008-9078-z
Abstract
Insight into the pathogenesis of neurodegenerative disorders requires accurately categorized postmortem human brain tissue. This article introduces electronic tissue tracking and management as implemented at New York Brain Bank (NYBB) through processing of the brain at fresh state and storing standardized frozen samples. NYBB tissue tracking uses a relational database to co-register a bar coded, unique sample identifier to unique coordinates in the three-dimensional freezer space, allowing immediate retrieval of stored samples without further dissection. In the 5 years since the inception of NYBB (2002–2007) 560 brains (63,252 fresh frozen samples) were processed and as of 11/2007, 54,242 samples are stored seven freezers occupying 81% of maximum capacity of NYBB. Within the same time period, 1,094 requests were processed and 9,096 samples were disbursed with an average turnaround time of five working days. The NYBB system of brain banking has the following key advantages: (1) The dissection of the brain and the harvest of samples at the fresh state improve their anatomic specificity and quality; (2) samples are ready for immediate disbursement once categorized diagnostically, reducing the time between the receipt of request and disbursement of samples; (3) the methods prevent thaw-refreeze cycles and carving out of regions of interest from frozen tissue, which is cumbersome and deleterious to the both samples and source brains; (4) accurate quantitative data on stored samples according to anatomical regions and distributive diagnosis guides future sample collection and fosters effective use of limited resources.Keywords
This publication has 7 references indexed in Scilit:
- Twenty-first century brain banking. Processing brains for research: the Columbia University methodsActa Neuropathologica, 2007
- How a neuropsychiatric brain bank should be run: a consensus paper of Brainnet Europe IIJournal Of Neural Transmission-Parkinsons Disease and Dementia Section, 2006
- Brain bank of the Brazilian aging brain study group—a milestone reached and more than 1,600 collected brainsCell and Tissue Banking, 2006
- An Improved Approach to Prepare Human Brains for ResearchJournal of Neuropathology and Experimental Neurology, 1995
- How to run a brain bank: potentials and pitfalls in the use of human post-mortem brain material in research.1993
- Chapter 7 Brain banking and the human hypothalamus — factors to match for, pitfalls and potentialsPublished by Elsevier ,1992
- Brain DonationNew England Journal of Medicine, 1989