Stanford Alzheimer's Disease Research Center Donations

Nothing is more precious to our mission than brain donation at the time of death. We appreciate the generosity of brain donation from our ADRC participants.

The mission of the Stanford ADRC is to serve as a shared resource to facilitate and enhance multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary research, outreach, and education in Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease and related disorders. This mission extends to milder forms cognitive impairment and encompasses healthy brain aging.

Our goal is to follow our ADRC participants over time until the time of eventual death, and at that point provide a definitive diagnosis through the ADRC Neuropathology and Biospecimens Core.  The state-of-the-art diagnosis adheres to national diagnostic criteria and is based on the microscopic examination of brain tissues obtained during a limited autopsy.  ADRC Core faculty contribute anonymous autopsy data to the National Alzheimer Coordinating Center and prepare a brain autopsy report in layman’s terms for the participant’s next of kin.  Other autopsy tissues are made available to qualified researchers.  The Neuropathology and Biospecimens Core maintains an archive of research tissues from ADRC autopsies.

During life, tissue specimens from blood, spinal fluid, and skin (skin cell fibroblasts) provided through the ADRC Clinical Core are processed, analyzed, and stored within the Neuropathology and Biospecimens Core.  Some specimens and genetic materials are provided anonymously to the National Cell Repository for Alzheimer’s Disease and to other qualified investigators.