What can we learn about brain donors? Use of clinical information in human postmortem brain research

Postmortem studies on the human brain reside at the core of investigations on neurologic and psychiatric disorders. Ground-breaking advances continue to be made on the pathologic basis of many of these disorders, at molecular, cellular, and neural connectivity levels. In parallel, there is increasing emphasis on improving methods to extract relevant demographic and clinical information about brain donors and, importantly, translate it into measures that can reliably and effectively be incorporated in the design and data analysis of postmortem human investigations. Here, we review the main source of information typically available to brain banks and provide examples on how this information can be processed. In particular, we discuss approaches to establish primary and secondary diagnoses, estimate exposure to therapeutic treatment and substance abuse, assess agonal status, and use time of death as a proxy in investigations on circadian rhythms. Although far from exhaustive, these considerations are intended as a contribution to ongoing efforts from tissue banks and investigators aimed at establishing robust, well-validated methods for collecting and standardizing information about brain donors, further strengthening the scientific rigor of human postmortem studies.