For Patients – Information about the DBS Brain Bank

The McKnight Brain Institute at the University of Florida houses the Deep Brain Stimulation (DBS) Brain Bank. This project is a unique brain tissue repository located in Gainesville, Florida and has been enrolling patients with Parkinson’s disease (PD) and other neurological disorders, who have had Deep Brain Stimulation and who are willing to donate their brain for research purposes. The DBS bank has been operational since 2006 and is a critical project for the DBS field as it is a unique, prospective bank that enrolls patients and collates their clinical information, which will ultimately help answer critical questions about DBS therapy.

This investment was made in order to provide support to expand enrollment and longitudinal clinical assessment of people with movement disorders and DBS such as: Parkinson’s disease (PD) and Essential Tremor (ET) disorders, as well as to bank and to distribute related high quality biospecimens that are invaluable to the advancement of research on PD, ET and DBS. Gene expression profiling will allow for the visualization of significant expression differences at specific sites between patients. Pathology/Immunohistochemistry studies will be performed once an adequate amount of tissue is collected. The study will enable both clinical and scientific collaborative research projects across multiple, experienced DBS centers.

Currently under the direction of Drs.Vinata Vedam-Mai and Michael S. Okun, the Brain Bank has a unique focus on rapid autopsy, to keep a short the postmortem interval (PMI). Currently, More than 100 subjects are currently enrolled. The bank has over 100 DBS brains including fixed and frozen brain tissue from subjects with PD, Dystonia, MSA and ET.