Resumo

Objectives: There is an urgent need for implementation of novel brain banks in psychiatric research. We aimed to collect human brains based on a structured protocol to avoid biases and limitations faced by previous initiatives and to enable design-based neurostereological analysis of well-characterized postmortem human brain tissue of subjects affected by bipolar disorder (BD), obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD) and matched controls. Methods: We will collect 10 brains of BD patients, 10 brains of OCD patients, and 20 brains of matched control. One hemisphere will be perfused with paraphormaldeyde and processed using an optimal method for neurostereological studies. The other hemisphere will be comprehensively dissected and frozen for further molecular studies. Results: To date, in one year, we collected 22 brains: 12 were excluded for not meeting the selection criteria. Out of the 10 cases were included with the following diagnoses: BD (3), major depression (2), substance abuse (1), subclinical OCD (2), obsessive compulsive symptoms (2) The majority were male (60%), and the average age at death was 66 ±9.28 years. The average IPM was 14h45min, and the pH mean of the cerebrospinal fluid 7.18±0.09. Conclusions: This collection was designed to allow a high quality and minimal bias on stereological analysis. The short PMI, suitable pH and the chosen protocol offer a unique opportunity to advance the understanding on neuropsychiatric diseases.