In this episode of Women & Wills, Tish Hevel, CEO and Founder of the Brain Donor Project, explains why donating brain tissue for basic research is an incredible gift, helping researchers working to treat and cure neurological, neuropsychiatric, and neurodevelopmental disorders such as dementia and Parkinson’s.
Tish Havel’s father, Gene Armentrout (pictured above) wanted to donate his brain to science when he died in 2015. Back then, it wasn’t easy. This inspired Tish to create the Brain Donor Project, which works with the NeuroBioBank of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to make it easy for people to register in advance and arrange for brain donation upon death.
The donation of one brain will provide tissue for dozens, sometimes hundreds, of neurological studies. There is no cost to the family of the decedent, and a family can receive, upon request, a comprehensive report on the neuropathology of the donated brain. This report can provide answers for the relatives of the donor that may not have been answerable without a post-mortem examination.
Anyone over the age of 18 can donate their brain, and healthy brains are needed too. The Brain Donor Project makes it easy. Listen to find out how easy it is and how important it will be.
To find out more: braindonorproject.org
To learn more about brain donation: https://neurobiobank.nih.gov/donors-how-become-donor/
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