May 7, 2025
Thank you Governor Maura Healey for proclaiming May 7 as Brain Donor Awareness Day in the great Commonwealth of Massachusetts!
Brain donation is the most generous gift a patient and their family can give to research. Being able to examine brain tissue from a post-mortem donor helps scientists discover new ways to treat and cure many neurological conditions. The results of a brain autopsy can provide families with the knowledge of their loved one’s condition since many diseases that affect the brain can only be diagnosed with certainty by the examination of brain tissue after death.
If you or your loved one is a patient at the MGH FTD Unit and are interested in learning more about brain donation, contact us at MGHFTDUnit@MGH.Harvard.edu.
If you are not connected with the MGH FTD Unit, you can learn more at https://www.madrc.org/brain-autopsy-and-donation-information/.
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Text of Proclamation:
WHEREAS, Brain Donation Awareness Day serves as an opportunity to increase awareness of serious conditions that affect the lives of citizens of Massachusetts; and
WHEREAS, Millions of Americans are currently living with disabling and debilitating brain disorders; an additional 1,200,000 people aged 18 years and older are diagnosed annually with adult-onset brain disease or disorders in the United States; and
WHEREAS, In Massachusetts, about 130,000 people are living with Alzheimer’s Disease and related dementias, over 70,000 people are living with epilepsy, over 25,000 people suffer a traumatic brain injury each year, and about 3.5 percent of adults over 35 have reported that they had a stroke; and
WHEREAS, Neurological conditions impact Americans of all ages, but the risk of neurodegenerative diseases increases dramatically with age, the number of older Americans is growing, and more people will be affected by neurodegenerative diseases in coming decades; and
WHEREAS, There is a critical need to improve the understanding of what causes neurological diseases, including neurodegenerative, neurodevelopmental, and psychiatric disorders, to develop new approaches for prevention and treatment; and
WHEREAS, The underlying causes of most neurological conditions remain largely unknown due to the vast complexity of the human brain but through research, the underlying causes of a greater number of neurological conditions can be understood; and
WHEREAS, Post-mortem brain tissue is an irreplaceable resource in brain research and there is a critical need to increase the availability of diseased and healthy human brains and related biospecimens; and
WHEREAS, One brain can provide tissue for dozens, even hundreds, of neurological studies; and
WHEREAS, Brain donation for neuroscience research is not a routine part of organ donation or anatomical body donation and increase donation rates are necessary to further research; and
NOW, THEREFORE, I, Maura Healey, Governor of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, do hereby proclaim May 7, 2025, as Brain Donation Awareness Day
And urge all the citizens of the Commonwealth to take cognizance of this event and participate fittingline in its observance.
Given at the Executive Chamber in Boston this seventh day of May in the year two thousand and twenty-five and of the Independence of the United States of America, the two hundred and forty-eighth.
BY HER EXCELLENCY
MAURA T. HEALEY KIMBERLEY DRISCOLL
GOVERNOR OF THE COMMONWEALTH LT. GOVERNOR OF THE COMMONWEALTH
WILLIAM FRANCIS GALVIN
SECRETARY OF THE COMMONWEALTH