Dead men talking? Europe's largest psychiatric brain bank.
-
1
Collaborative Antwerp Psychiatric Research Institute, University Antwerp, Belgium
-
2
Psychiatric Hospital Duffel, Belgium
Recently, the University of Antwerp gained ownership of what probably is the largest psychiatric brain bank in Europe.
Interestingly, the earliest brains in the collection date from the early 50’s, a period were psychopharmacological drugs were still in development and therefore scarcely administered to patients. This exceptional feature enables us to excavate the influence of psychiatric disorders themselves on the brain, bypassing the need for caution in interpreting post-mortem data from medicated patients as is the case with most if not all post mortem studies available today.
As our research group investigates the role of neuroinflammation in psychiatric disorders, we aim to relate our clinical patient data to findings in post mortem tissue. Specifically, we will try to determine whether pro-inflammatory cytokines and kynurenine metabolites found in the peripheral blood of patients are also present in the brain; this via both histology and state-of-the-art liquid chromatography–mass spectrometry (LCMS).
Since this collection harbours a treasure of information due to its uniqueness, we would also like to make a warm appeal to fellow researchers interested in collaborating with us on this rare but valuable collection.
Résumé en Français :
Récemment, l’Université d’Anvers a acquis ce qui est probablement la plus grande banque de cerveaux en Europe.
Une des particularités et richesse de cette acquisition est que les premiers cerveaux de cette collection datent des années 50, période à laquelle peu de drogues de type psychopharmacologique existaient, et donc vierge de tout traitement par ces drogues administrées des années plus tard aux patients et qui complique l’analyse des données collectées. Cette collection constitue un trésor d’information et nous sommes prêts à ouvrir cette collection et collaborer avec les chercheurs qui ont un projet innovant nécessitant l’utilisation de ces cerveaux.
Samenvatting in het Nederlands:
Onlangs verwierf de universiteit van Antwerpen de wellicht grootse verzameling hersenen in Europa. Een van de bijzonderheden en ook de waarde van deze aanwinst is dat de oudste exemplaren dateren van de jaren 50, een periode waarin nog bijna geen psychofarmocologische medicatie bestond, en de hersenen dus niet blootgestaan hebben aan psychofarmacologische behandeling zoals die in de daaropvolgende jaren gebruikt werd, en die de analyse van de gegevens bemoeilijkt. Deze verzameling vormt een schat aan informatie en we zijn bereid de collectie open te stellen en samen te werken met onderzoekers die aan een project werken waarvoor deze hersenen nuttig kunnen gebruikt worden.
Keywords:
Brain,
postmortem,
Schizophrenia,
Depression,
Inflammation
Conference:
6th Belgian Brain Congress, MONS, Belgium, 8 Oct - 8 Oct, 2016.
Presentation Type:
Poster Presentation
Topic:
Brain and brain diseases: between heredity and environment
Citation:
Morrens
M and
Coppens
V
(2016). Dead men talking? Europe's largest psychiatric brain bank..
Conference Abstract:
6th Belgian Brain Congress.
doi: 10.3389/conf.fnagi.2016.03.00089
Copyright:
The abstracts in this collection have not been subject to any Frontiers peer review or checks, and are not endorsed by Frontiers.
They are made available through the Frontiers publishing platform as a service to conference organizers and presenters.
The copyright in the individual abstracts is owned by the author of each abstract or his/her employer unless otherwise stated.
Each abstract, as well as the collection of abstracts, are published under a Creative Commons CC-BY 4.0 (attribution) licence (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) and may thus be reproduced, translated, adapted and be the subject of derivative works provided the authors and Frontiers are attributed.
For Frontiers’ terms and conditions please see https://www.frontiersin.org/legal/terms-and-conditions.
Received:
22 Aug 2016;
Published Online:
22 Aug 2016.
*
Correspondence:
Prof. Manuel Morrens, Collaborative Antwerp Psychiatric Research Institute, University Antwerp, Antwerp, Belgium, manuel.morrens@uantwerpen.be