Brain Banks

Queen Square Brain Bank

Institute of Neurology - University College London

Queen Square
London
WC1N 3BG
United Kingdom
Visit Website
Contact: Professor T. Warner and Professor T. Revesz, Directors
Phone: 44 (0)20 3456 7890
E-mail: ion.neuropathology@ucl.ac.uk

The center holds a unique archive of brains donated by individuals with neurodegenerative disease and neurologically normal controls. It specializes in parkinsonian movement disorders, including Parkinson’s disease and multiple system atrophy and holds the national collection of brains donated by individuals with progressive supranuclear palsy (PSP). Recently the collection has been developed to include donated brains from prospectively studied people with familial dementias. Brain tissue is stored as formalin-fixed, wax embedded blocks and is frozen, either at –20 °C or at –80 °C (flash-frozen). Tissue can be provided to researchers as slide-mounted sections, or as small blocks for neurochemistry, proteomics and DNA and RNA analysis.