The Victorian Brain Bank Network (VBBN) are the custodians of a collection of brain and related samples that have been donated by individuals who have had:
- neurological and neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer’s disease, motor neurone disease and Parkinsons disease
- psychiatric disorders such as bipolar mood disorder, depression and schizophrenia, as well as
- neurotrauma cases and
- healthy control cases.
Located at MHRI, the VBBN is part of the Australian Brain Bank Network (ABBN), which is a not-for-profit consortium of brain banks across Australia.
The overall aim of brain banks such as the VBBN is to provide Australian and international researchers with high quality tissue samples and data in order to facilitate research into brain and mind disorders.
By making the decision to donate your brain to VBBN, you are helping to facilitate research which has the great potential to unlock our understanding of how brain and mind disorders occur and may lead to:
- Improvements in diagnosis
- Development of early diagnostic tests
- Therapeutic interventions
- Development of preventative strategies
The VBBN has human research ethics approval from The University of Melbourne, Monash University and the Victorian Institute of Forensic Medicine.