The subject of grey matter was on everyone's minds when three of New Zealand's top brainiacs addressed a large audience in Whangarei to kick off Parkinson's Awareness Week.
One in five New Zealanders are affected by a brain disorder, Professor Richard Faull, director of the University of Auckland Centre for Brain Research (CBR) and director of the Neurological Foundation Human Brain Bank, said.
Huntington's, Alzheimer's, dementia, multiple sclerosis and other brain disorders including strokes were touched on in yesterday's presentations by Prof Faull, Dr Malvindar Singh-Bains, a Research Fellow at the CBR who has specialised in Huntington's, and Dr Maurice Curtis, Associate Professor in Anatomy at the Faculty of Medical and Health Sciences at Auckland University, a researcher at the CBR and a deputy director of the Brain Bank.
The first speaker, Prof Faull, showed images of an Alzheimer's brain affected by "a cascade of brain cell death" and the Parkinson's brain without the "big, fat, juicy dopamine-producing cells of a normal brain".
He told of how the Brain Bank started almost informally, beginning with brain tissues being used for pathology and research purposes to bequests of entire brains, to the university "ending up with one of the most incredible brain banks in the world".