During the initial tenure of this grant, a brain bank was established at McLean Hospital to collect tissue from Huntington's disease, schizophrenia and non-neuropsychiatric controls. In the first four years of this grant a total of 285 brains were collected. These tissues were dissected into 64 different regions and stored at -70 C. Seventy U.S. investigators received from our bank over 10,000 vials of brain tissue. The present continuation proposal will aim to expand the collection, dissection and disbursement of brain tissues from neuropsychiatric disorders that have potential for the detection of neurochemical abnormalities. An effort will be made to reduce the postmortem time interval for removal of brains which will expand the number of techniques that can be applied to the study of postmortem human brain. Modification of our dissection methods to include the dissection of both hemispheres will expand the neurochemical profile to the whole human brain and address the problems of laterality of the brain. It is planned to use a whole brain cryo-microtome for sectioning the brain in order to dissect tissue from small nuclei not previously dissected from human frozen brain. The Brain Bank will establish a neuropathology laboratory in order to provide better histopathological sections and speed up the time interval between collecting the brain and establishing a diagnosis. Neurochemical measurements will be carried out on small sections of the frozen brain before it is dissected in order to determine the quality of the brain at a molecular level. A data base management file on all cases will be kept in order to provide detailed clinical information on the case.
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