Hispanic and Latino families will soon represent one in five Americans. Yet, they make up less than 1% of brain tissue donations for Alzheimer’s and related dementia research. This gap means scientists do not understand how these diseases differ in Hispanic and Latino communities. Without this knowledge, preventive guidelines and new treatments might not work effectively for this rapidly growing population.
Over eight years, 81 Hispanic families in South Texas gave our institute the gift of their loved ones’ brain tissue to help advance research. Thirty-three families have already completed this gift, with 48 living donors committed to future donations. When we studied these brains, we discovered something important: most Hispanic donors had multiple diseases affecting their brains at the same time. In addition to Alzheimer’s, they also had Lewy body dementia, strokes, or other brain conditions. This pattern appears in over 70% of Hispanic people but only 40% of non-Hispanic people. Having multiple diseases together may explain why Hispanic families often see their loved ones develop symptoms earlier and experience Alzheimer’s differently than expected.
We will create deidentified, high-resolution digital images of all these brain tissue samples, carefully partitioned into sections and stained to show over 100 proteins in the brain, and share them with the global research community. This will enable scientists everywhere to study these Hispanic brains remotely without having the precious brain tissue leave the Biggs brain bank. They can test out their own ideas and hypotheses, collaborate by combining these data with their own, and make discoveries about how Alzheimer’s differs in Hispanic communities, helping us develop better ways to prevent, diagnose, and treat the disease for everyone. This funding will enable us to share over a million pieces of digital data on each of the 33 precious brain donations with researchers who need them, and to fulfill our commitment to the 48 still living donors who are counting on us to honor their altruism and maximize the benefit of their donation to future generations when the time comes.
