More Brains Needed 232
Hugh Pickens writes "BBC reports that more people need to donate their brains to medical research if cures for diseases like dementia are to be found and are urging healthy people as well as those with brain disorders to become donors. 'For autism, we only have maybe 15 or 20 brains that have been donated that we can do our research on. That is drastically awful,' said Dr Payam Rezaie of the Neuropathology Research Laboratory at the Open University. 'We would need at least 100 cases to get meaningful data. A lot of research is being hindered by this restriction.' Part of the problem, according to Professor Margaret Esiri at the University of Oxford, may be that people are reluctant to donate their brains because they see the organ as the basis of their identity. 'It used to be other parts of the body that we thought were important,' says Esin. 'But now people realize that their brain is the crucial thing that gives them their mind and their self.' Dr Kieran Breen, of the Parkinson's Disease Society, said over 90% of the brains in their bank at Imperial College London were from patients, with the remaining 10% of 'healthy' brains donated by friends or relatives of patients. 'Some people are under the impression that if they sign up for a donor card that will include donating their brain for research. But it won't,' says Breen. 'Donor cards are about donating organs for transplant, not for medical science.'"
Re:Donor Cards (Score:1, Informative)
I first filled out an organ donor card in high school, when a student in my speech class was giving orations advocating organ donation and passing out the cards. I don't have that card anymore, but I remember it had multiple choices on it. You could choose between "any needed organs or parts" and just an enumerated list. You could also choose between donating for transplantation and/or donating for research.
So maybe they just need to improve the cards people are signing.
contact your local medical school (Score:5, Informative)
My mom had completed the paperwork to donate her body to the local medical school before she found out she had a rare degenerative (untreatable and invariably fatal) neuromuscular disorder. in her consultations with the neurology team at the local school, they determined that the leading research team was at another major university, so they just added that school to the paperwork to receive her brain and spinal cord. other than completing the paperwork, signing it and advising her next of kin, the process was seamless. the funeral home guys picked her up after she died and we gave them the paperwork. the university guys took it from there.
easy. and very satisfying.
Re:Ethics, line 1... (Score:3, Informative)
err..wait.
Having been in the medical field for a while, from my complete experience, this is nonsense. I can't remember the last hospital I visited in the eastern side of the United States that had only one surgeon avialable on any given day. The truth is these guys do put in some serious hours but there is almost always more than one (...and for obvious reasons). So the story of the nurse or doctor mentioned wanting to relieve this surgeon is bogus.
If anyone truly believes this, I encourage you to never go to a hospital and deny all medical care. If these people are so ready to lose patients for the option to maybe save another I wouldn't trust them with 90% of a normal doctor visit.
The truth is, that most of these individuals attend school for a long time to make big bucks and contribute to the medical community. Ask a surgeon if they can recant a time when they lost someone on the table. If they had--They'll remember it, because it's not easy obviously, even if you think they're a drunken loser.
Again the donor card has nothing to do with contributing to science, although when you truly do die, your organs would go to someone in actual need.
Re:Take Mine (Score:4, Informative)
While I'm sure there are some surprising uses for corpses, I can assure you testing fire suits is not one of them.
They are tested using sophisticated bipedal structures of gelatin and/or elastopolymers that resemble the human body in rigidity and thermal decomposition properties. Those mannequins have hundreds or thousands of pressure and temperature sensors over them to determine how much protection fabrics can provide and where they are ineffective.
Re:Many fear cost... (Score:3, Informative)