'Neuro-Inflammation after Cerebral Haemorrhage’ award complements a new brain banking award

Congratulations to Prof Rustam Al Shahi Salman, Dr Neshika Samarasekera (both Centre for Clinical Brain Sciences) as well as other collaborators from Edinburgh, Manchester and Boston on being awarded a £0.44 million Stroke Association Priority Programme Award for 'Neuro-Inflammation after Cerebral Haemorrhage in Edinburgh’ (NICHE).NICHE will take translational imaging and tissue approaches to understanding neuro-inflammation, culminating in the design of a randomised trial to improve outcome after brain haemorrhage. This complements a further £0.8 million funding to Prof Colin Smith, Prof Joanna Wardlaw and Prof Rustam Al-Shahi Salman (all Centre for Clinical Brain Sciences) from the MRC, in collaboration with The Stroke Association, for 3.5 years of support to develop a small vessel disease brain bank resource, enriched with data linkages, as part of the Edinburgh Brain Bank.  

These awards bring together cohorts covering intracerebral haemorrhage, lacunar stroke, normal ageing and dementia and result a bioresource covering all the clinical phenotypes associated with human small vessel disease; lacunar stroke, intracerebral haemorrhage and general white matter injury which can ultimately result in significant cognitive impairment and dementia. All donated brain samples will be linked to detailed clinical information, through both primary (GP) and secondary (hospital) clinical records, providing life course health information.

This will be a unique resource supporting ongoing research in to small vessel disease and cerebral haemorrhage both locally and internationally, and will bring together expertise within both the Centre for Clinical Brain Sciences and the Usher Institute of Population Health Sciences and Informatics.