The idea of creating a National Brain Databank has been on the agenda for the Harvard Brain Tissue Resource Center (HBTRC) for several years and the National Institute of Neurological Disease and Stroke (NINDS) and the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) has funded the implementation of this proposal. Since July 2003, the HBTRC initiated development of the National Brain Databank in conjunction with Akaza Research a biomedical informatics consulting firm based in Cambridge, MA. The system was developed using the Java J2EE application platform and the PostgreSQL database. It is designed to incorporate MIAME and MAGE-ML based microarray data sharing standards in the future. The initial version of the National Brain Databank is publicly released in April 2004 and continues to be further developed, based on ongoing usage and feedback from users.

All of the data that is derived from studies of the HBTRC collection is being incorporated into the National Brain Databank. This data is available to the general public, although strict precautions are undertaken to maintain the confidentiality of the brain donors and their family members. These precautions include the use of anonymized numbers and restricted access to demographic information. For professional scientists who will require access to confidential information to complete their studies, a username and access code will be made available, after they have reviewed the HIPAA requirements and have agreed to abide by them.

Data from various types of studies conducted on brain tissue in the HBTRC collection will be available from studies using different technologies, such as gene expression profiling, quantitative RT-PCR, situ hybridization, and immunocytochemistry and will have the potential for providing powerful insights into the subregional and cellular distribution of genes and/or proteins in different brain regions and eventually in specific subregions and cellular subtypes. All qualified investigators who would like to gain access to more detailed information regarding the subjects (including diagnostic reports on postmortem brain tissue) must demonstrate that they are aware of the HIPAA requirements for confidentiality by reviewing information that appears in the privacy policy on this website.

To begin this initiative, the HBTRC has assembled a cohort called the "McLean 66" that consists of approximately 22 normal controls, 22 schizophrenics and 22 bipolar subject matched for age, postmortem interval and gender. The first available data is from gene expression profiling studies of the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex and hippocampus; eventually, similar data from the anterior cingulate region of schizophrenic and bipolar patients and the caudate nucleus of patients with different stages of Huntington's disease will be added. The HBTRC is also using laser microdissection, a new technology that makes it possible to remove specific populations of neurons implicated in the pathophysiology of various disorders. To begin this process, we are obtaining dopamine neurons from the substantia nigra of patients with Parkinson's disease and will use microarray technology to evaluate changes in gene expression in the neurons that are known to undergo degenerative changes in Parkinson's disease.