The Defense Department is establishing the world’s first repository of brain tissue, with the goal of helping researchers better understand traumatic brain injury. The Center for Neuroscience and Regenerative Medicine Brain Tissue Repository will be placed at the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences in Bethesda, Md. "By studying these tissues, along with access to clinical information associated with them, we hope to more rapidly address the biologic mechanisms by which head trauma leads to chronic traumatic encephalopathy," said Dr. Daniel Perl, the center’s director. Service members who sustain traumatic brain injuries "are coming home with troubling, persistent problems and we don’t know the nature of this, whether it’s related to psychiatric responses from engagement in warfare or related to actual damage in the brain." For more information, or to donate tissue, email CNRM-TBI@usuhs.edu or (855) 366-8824.
