For Patients
Patient Care
CNDR partners with our clinical colleagues across Penn. If you are a patient seeking care, please contact our colleagues at:
- The Penn Alzheimer's Disease Research Center/Penn Memory Center
- The Penn FTD Center
- The Parkinson's Disease and Movement Disorders Center
- The ALS Center at Pennsylvania Hospital
Research
How can you help with Research?
- Clinical Trials
CNDR clinical partners are conducting a variety of investigational clinical trials that are seeking participants. Ask your physician about clinical trials, or search for active trials at Penn Medicine.
'Participating in Alzheimer's Research: For Yourself and Future Generations'
Learn more about participating in Alzheimer's research and related clinical trials with the National Institute on Aging's (NIA) Alzheimer's Disease Education and Referral (ADEAR) Center's e-booklet. This resource offers insight into the type of clinical research that is conducted, FAQ's, and more.
Participating in Alzheimer's Research: For Yourself and Future Generations
- Post-Mortem Brain Donation to the Penn Brain Bank
The Center for Neurodegenerative Disease Research (CNDR) encourages all families of patients affected by an aging related neurodegenerative disorder – be it Alzheimer's or Parkinson's disease, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis or frontotemporal disease or other related disorders – to consider donation of nervous system tissues (i..e brain and spinal cord) from decedents for autopsy establishment of the exact cause of the patient's cognitive or motor impairments.
At Penn, the Penn Alzheimer's Disease Core Center (ADCC) and the Center for Neurodegenerative Disease Research (CNDR) maintain a brain and tissue bank, managed by Terry Schuck and funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH), that contains human brain samples obtained from Penn patients with Alzheimer's disease (AD), Parkinson's disease (PD), and other related neurodegenerative dementias and movement disorders.
Currently, the Penn Brain Bank accepts donations only from those seeing a Penn physician or collaborator, as required by NIH grants which require resources committed to our autopsy programs be dedicated to decedents who have been enrolled as patients or controls in our research programs. Patients are enrolled as donors through their Penn physicians or through one of the following organizations at Penn:- Penn Alzheimer's Disease Research Center/Penn Memory Center
- The Parkinson's Disease and Movement Disorders Center
- The Penn FTD Center
- The Brain/Spinal Cord Donation Program at the Penn ALS Center
What are the various diseases that CNDR is investigating?
Neurodegenerative diseases share many common pathways and mechanisms, making the coordinated study of these diseases both necessary and highly productive. The components of CNDR research programs are linked into a unified conceptual framework by the hypothesis that "diverse neurodegenerative diseases arise from 'fatal attractions' of brain proteins."