Brain Tissue Bank
The Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center (ADRC) maintains an active brain bank to facilitate the acquisition, storage, handling and distribution of well-characterized autopsy brain tissue and other materials to investigators. Due to a close relationship with the Emory Center for Neurodegenerative Disease, the ADRC also has access to tissues and samples related to other neurodegenerative diseases as described below.
Frozen Tissue: Over 450 autopsy brains including AD, PD, tauopathy, Huntington's disease, other neurodegenerative diseases, and controls
Brain Biopsies: ~30 frozen specimens and ~50 paraffin blocks including AD, PD collected during pallidotomy surgery, tauopathy, Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, and other diagnoses
Formalin Fixed Tissue: Over 400 cases of AD, PD, tauopathy, Huntington's disease, and Paraffin Blocks other neurodegenerative diseases, and controls
Paraformaldehyde-fixed, Cryopreserved Tissue: Over 350 cases of AD, PD, tauopathy, Huntington's disease, and Paraffin Blocks other neurodegenerative diseases, and controls
Biospecimen Bank
The ADRC, Center for Neurodegenerative Disease, and the Emory Department of Neurology Department work together to maintain a large and rapidly expanding DNA Bank and Lymphoblast Repository. Plasma, Cerebrospinal Fluid, and serum are also stored. The biological samples are associated with well-characterized patients with dementia, movement disorders, sleep disorders, stroke, neuromuscular disorders and other nervous system diseases as well as healthy control subjects. Many different types of studies can be conducted using these samples, including genetic association and linkage studies, genotype/phenotype studies, analysis of clinical phenotype categorizations, and mRNA protein analysis studies.
The majority of Biospecimen Bank participants are patients treated by Emory Department of Neurology physicians. These patients have diagnoses of various memory and movement disorders, including Probable Alzheimer's Disease (AD), Frontotemporal Dementia (FTD) and Parkinson's Disease (PD), as well as diagnoses of Stroke, Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS), and Restless Leg Syndrome (RLS). Additional participants in these depositories include community members with the aforementioned disorders, family members of participants with these disorders, and controls.
Buffy Coat Isolates and DNA Extracts from Buffy Coats: Over 6700 buffy coats and DNA isolates from patients with AD and other neurological diseases and control subjects enrolled in the Clinical Research in Neurology Registry
DNA Extracts from Autopsy Tissue: Over 400 cases of AD and other neurological diseases and 150 institutional "control" cases
Plasma Samples: Over 6700 samples from patients with AD and other neurological diseases and control subjects enrolled in the Clinical Research in Neurology Registry
Serum Samples: Over 250 samples from patients with AD and other neurological diseases and control subjects enrolled in Clinical Research in Neurology Registry
Lymphoblast Cell Lines: Approximately 4000 lymphoblast cell lines derived from patients with AD and other neurological diseases and control subjects enrolled in the Clinical Research in Neurology Registry
Cerebrospinal Fluid Samples: In collaboration with the Emory Center for Neurodegenerative Disease, we have access to a growing collection of cerebral spinal fluid samples from over 170 patients with a variety of neurological diagnoses including Alzheimer's and Parkinson's disease. These frozen samples and the associated neurobehavioral and other patient data records are a valuable resource and may be requested for appropriate research studies.
Investigators interested in getting more information about the Brain Tissue Bank should contact Marla Gearing at 404/712-8352 or
mgearin@emory.edu.
Investigators interested in getting more information about the Biospecimen Bank should contact Ami Rosen at 404/728-4956 or
arosen3@emory.edu.
If you would like to place an official order/request for tissue samples or biospecimens, please visit the
Emory Neuroscience NINDS Core Facilities (ENNCF) website. At the top of the ENNCF website, choose “My Account” and then choose “Register” if this is your first request or “Log In” if you have visited this website previously.
Our database, established in the late 1990s, retains extensive clinical information about study subjects recruited by our Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center Clinical Core as well as the many other individuals with neurological diseases seen in the Neurology Department over a number of years. As of March 2009, there are roughly 6,400 subjects in this database who have a specific research or clinical diagnosis and who have volunteered for research. There are another 1,000 subjects whose records are currently under review for inclusion into this database. The table below shows the breakdown of the diagnoses.
|
Diagnosis
|
Number*
(Total = 6414)
|
Percentage
|
| Control**
|
1401
|
22%
|
| Possible Alzheimer’s disease
|
250
|
4%
|
| Probable Alzheimer’s disease
|
1000
|
16%
|
| Mild Cognitive Impairment (MCI)
|
329
|
5%
|
| Frontotemporal dementia (FTD)
|
155
|
2%
|
| Vascular dementia
|
59
|
1%
|
| Other dementia
|
42
|
1%
|
| Lewy body disease (LBD)
|
75
|
1%
|
| Parkinson’s disease
|
607
|
9%
|
| Other movement disorders
|
268
|
5%
|
| Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS)
|
347
|
5%
|
| Stroke
|
541
|
8%
|
| Sleep disorders
|
612
|
9%
|
| Other diagnoses
|
728
|
11%
|
* Includes subjects recruited for the National Alzheimer’s Coordinating Center (NACC)
** Control subjects self-reported no history of neurological disease; the great majority had Mini-Mental State Exam (MMSE) data indicating no cognitive impairment; a subset of these subjects have had a full neurological work-up.
In addition to clinical information, we collect basic demographics, medical history (including risk factors such as smoking), and a detailed family history from all of these subjects. Vital status is available through the end of 2004. For many we have some neuropsychological measures; most have an MMSE and clock drawing test, for example. The majority of subjects in our database have only one visit. However, about 1,900 of the roughly 6,400 subjects have been or are being seen longitudinally. At each visit they complete some neuropsychological testing and a neurological exam, as well as an interview to capture new medical and family history.
There are over 2,500 variables in our database, not all of which are available for each subject. To facilitate data use for research, we have put together a Summary Database which contains about 150 of the most commonly requested variables. A data dictionary describing the variables in the Summary Database is available (
click here).
Investigators interested in getting more information about the Emory Neurology Database should contact Ami Rosen at 404/728-4956 or
arosen3@emory.edu.
If you would like to request some of these data for research studies or would like to contact some of these subjects for possible participation in other research studies, please fill out the appropriate request form and email it to Ami Rosen at
arosen3@emory.edu.