The NSW brain tissue resource centre: Banking for alcohol and major neuropsychiatric disorders research

• A description of a human brain bank for Alcohol-related research.
• The provision of high quality and well-characterized tissue.
• Historic and current use of human brain tissue in research.
• The challenges of meeting the future needs of researchers.

The New South Wales Brain Tissue Resource Centre (NSWBTRC) at the University of Sydney (Australia) is an established human brain bank providing tissue to the neuroscience research community for investigations on alcohol-related brain damage and major psychiatric illnesses such as schizophrenia. The NSWBTRC relies on wide community engagement to encourage those with and without neuropsychiatric illness to consent to donation through its allied research programs. The subsequent provision of high-quality samples relies on standardized operational protocols, associated clinical data, quality control measures, integrated information systems, robust infrastructure, and governance. These processes are continually augmented to complement the changes in internal and external governance as well as the complexity and diversity of advanced investigation techniques. This report provides an overview of the dynamic process of brain banking and discusses the challenges of meeting the future needs of researchers, including synchronicity with other disease-focus collections.