CORE D: NEUROPATHOLOGY CORE Abstract The Neuropathology Core (NC) will capitalize on the longstanding, actively recruiting University of Michigan (UM) Brain Bank, several decades of patient clinical characterization by Alzheimer?s Disease (AD) researchers at UM, and the substantial resources of the UM Protein Folding Diseases (PFD) Initiative to advance the Michigan ADCC's central theme: to identify, understand and modulate the non-??amyloid factors contributing to brain dysfunction and neurodegeneration in AD and related dementias. Studies of these diseases will be facilitated by integrating NC, Clinical Core and Data Management and Statistical Core activities to collect and properly characterize post-mortem material and associated antemortem biospecimens from ADCC participants with no neurologic disease and those with varied stages of AD and related neurodegenerative disorders. The NC will follow the 2014 NIA Biospecimen Task Force best practice guidelines for the evaluation, banking and distribution of brain tissue, DNA, and plasma. These essential resources, along with access to NC expertise and technologies, will be available for investigators at UM, our regional partner institutions Michigan State University and Wayne State University, and AD Centers across the country. Furthermore, by leveraging resources of the PFD Initiative and the diverse expertise of NC investigators in neurodegenerative proteinopathies, the NC will be uniquely positioned to facilitate innovative research into the pathologic mechanisms underlying protein dysfunction in dementia. To accomplish these goals and tasks, the NC will pursue the following aims: 1) grow and maintain a brain bank with well-characterized frozen and fixed tissue, 2) provide accurate, detailed, and standardized neuropathological evaluation, 3) distribute banked tissue and biospecimens, 4) contribute neuropathologic data to NACC, 5) support researchers studying AD and related dementias, and 6) actively educate trainees about the neuropathologic assessment of dementia. Through these aims, the NC will greatly facilitate basic and translational studies of the dementias, expand the research community actively engaged in this work, and help build new collaborations for future discoveries.
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