Becoming a donor requires consent from the individual and from the next-of-kin or person in lawful possession of the body after your death. To become a donor you should read and have understood the ‘Information about Brain Donation to the Human Brain Bank for Research’ documents and complete an ‘Offer of Brain and Other Tissues’. (Consent can be withdrawn at any time). The ‘Post-Mortem Consent’ form will need to be signed by your next-of-kin at the time of death.

Many different scientific techniques can be performed on donated human brain tissue. The most common are designed to understand how the brain is wired and what chemicals are involved in making it function normally and which ones become dysfunctional in brain diseases. Also, we are able to isolate a few cells from certain parts of the brain and grow them in cell culture. The number of cells kept alive in culture is very small, but they do retain some normal brain cell functions (such as the way one cell communicates with another, but the characteristics like personality and thinking are not retained) and if the donor had a neurological disease, then dysfunctional characteristics of the neurons can be studied in cell culture. Furthermore, new drugs for neurological diseases can be tested directly on human brain cells that have been affected by the disease. We work with geneticists at the Centre for Brain Research who seek answers to how specific genes cause diseases while others protect from disease. Tissue may be processed for genetic sequencing to identify and study genes of interest that relate to brain structure, function and neurological disease. The findings are for research purposes only and will not be reported back to the family. In addition, in order to study the effects of specific gene expression on human brain cells in culture, we undertake studies such as knocking genes out or expressing them at high levels in cultured human brain cells.

Brain tissue will be used by researchers nationwide to advance our understanding of the brain, what goes wrong in brain diseases and how the brain can be repaired. We work closely with carefully chosen research groups at other universities and institutes within New Zealand and overseas; in order to more rapidly advance our studies, we may send brain tissue to them on a collaborative basis to perform specified studies. Also, because our aims are to develop and test treatments for brain diseases, there may be situations where, for example, a pharmaceutical company may contract us to test potential drugs for them using human brain tissue or cells. Whilst this is uncommon, we will only engage in such work if there is a high likely hood of this accelerating the development of treatment options for patients with brain diseases. Any profit made from such a relationship is used to fund human brain research in the brain bank directly.

Donated brain tissue will be stored indefinitely in the brain bank. However sometimes there is a small amount of tissue is left over after the dissection of the brain is complete. This tissue will be cremated, and the ashes will be scattered at the University of Auckland memorial plot at the Mangere Lawn Cemetery.

All identifiable donor information is kept private and is stored either on a secure database or in a locked filing cabinet at the Centre for Brain Research on the 5th floor of building 503 at the Grafton campus. Only brain bank staff will have access to the name and contact details of the donor. If you decide to withdraw from offering your brain for donation you can phone, e-mail or write to us at the address below.