Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy Brain Bank focuses on military personnel

C. Dirk Keene, MD PhD

The Seattle Times recently reported that a new brain bank, designated the Pacific Northwest Brain Donor Network, has been launched at the University of Washington. 

“We are going to study these brains to the full extent that we are capable,” said Dr. C. Dirk Keene, who leads the neuropathology core at UW Medicine. “They are so rare, so valuable and just so precious, and can give us so much information about what these exposures mean.”

Since the program started in March, researchers have acquired three brains. They include donations from one military veteran, a middle-aged man who had not been exposed to blast injury, and a military contractor, a woman, also middle-aged, who had worked in a war zone.