The Thomas Willis Oxford Brain collection features in a Sunday Telegraph article by local journalist Vikki Owen. She talks movingly about donating her father’s brain to research and his struggle with MS.
The Thomas Willis Oxford Brain Collection is a collaborating centre for the Brains for Dementia Research Initiative (BDR), which is a recently developed nationwide network of centres (currently 5) for brain collection specifically for research on dementia. The Alzheimer’s Research Trust and the Alzheimer’s Society have generously come together to provide financial support for the development of BDR centres. Operating under full Human Tissue Authority regulations this network of brain banks supports the use of brain tissue in approved studies throughout the UK and World-wide. OPTIMA research participants’ brain donations are part of the Oxford BDR centre.
When OPTIMA participants have given consent to brain donation their families are always offered the opportunity to discuss the results of the analysis of the brain, once the report has been finalised.