Rich Easton, CEO of The Neurological Foundation and Taylor Stevenson, one of the researchers funded by the Foundation gave us an outstanding presentation on 9 May 2022.

Rich started the presentation by outlining the activities of The Foundation.  It is funded by donations from the public.  There is no funding from the Government.

He spoke about the things we can do as individuals to keep our brains healthy in a general way – regular exercise, care with alcohol, avoiding tobacco, a good balanced diet, doing puzzles and socialising.

A large number of research projects are supported: the Foundation is a very active participant in this.

The Foundation funds a Chair of Clinical Neurology and the work around stroke and stroke recovery.  If a person suffering a stroke reaches a specialist hospital within an hour endovascular clot retrieval from the affected cerebral artery can be achievable with a good clinical outcome.  Most, but not the more remote, parts of New Zealand are accessible within this time by helicopter.  The hospitals involved are Auckland,  Waikato, Wellington and Christchurch. 

Another fascinating project is the Human Brain Bank.  In 1994 the Neurological Foundation granted the university funds to purchase a minus 80 degree chest freezer, which became the cornerstone of the only human brain bank in New Zealand.

Since then, with funding from the Neurological Foundation, the human brain bank has grown to encompass several staff and multiple freezers with one of the most valuable and extensive collections of human brain tissue in the world. The brain tissue stored in the bank’s freezers provide vital clues in the study of neurological conditions and is a fundamental resource for the researchers working towards managing, treating and curing these conditions.

Taylor Stevenson is a post-doc researcher funded by the Foundation.  His particular interest is Parkinson’s disease (PD) and he uses tissue from the Human Brain Bank to pursue his research.  He described the pathological clumping of certain proteins in PD and how this spreads from cell to cell. This research focuses on non-neuronal cell types in the human brain, particularly those involved in the blood vessel network. His experiments investigate how non-neuronal cells cope with the pathological protein in Parkinson’s disease and specialises in early detection of Parkinson’s disease in the olfactory bulb, one of the first areas of the brain to be affected in cases of Parkinson’s disease.  PD is the second most common neurodegenerative disorder after Alzheimer’s disease and affects approximately 11,000 people in New Zealand – and growing.  Taylor’s presentation was well illustrated.

The session concluded with a  lively question and answer session.

We were left with the impression that there is a great deal more to learn of the work and activities of the Foundation and indeed Rich offered speak to us again.  It is clear our members would very much appreciate this.