Brains for dementia research

Artistic inspiration can come from the most unlikely of places. The use of brain tissue for dementia research may be a less obvious source for poetry than landscapes and love, but it inspired one of our donors, Jo Livingston to pen the following tribute to the vital work being done by researchers on our "three pounds of sludge".

Jo suffers from prosopagnosia, which is an inability to recognise people's faces. She certainly recognises the importance of donated tissue in the quest to conquer neurological and neurodegenerative diseases.

 

Brain Donor

You might not think that it would be much use,
Three pounds of sludge left lying on a slab.
Without its nature, humour, sense of self,
How can they use such leavings in a lab?

But now the scientists can get up close,
No longer peering through a net of wires.
Individual synapses and nerves
Can be teased out as current work requires.

In time the neuroplagues we suffer from,
Dementia, the autistic range, the fits,
Will yield their secrets to the probing knife
And give to later times the benefits.

It's no big deal to offer that which else
Would be consumed into the wasteful fire.
A minor gift from now to then will aid
The knowledge that such progress will require.

Jo Livingston