The Generative Brain

Hospital Universitario Fundacion Alcorcon neuropathology and brain bank, Spanish reference centre for autopsies in suspected human prion disease

Hospital Universitario Fundacion Alcorcon (HUFA) is a public hospital of the Comunidad de Madrid whose neuropathology laboratory and brain bank have served since the late 1990s as the place where suspected human prion disease cases from Madrid, and from Spanish regions without their own centre, go for autopsy and definitive neuropathological diagnosis within the Spanish national CJD surveillance system. Its own 2021 paper calls it a national reference center for post-mortem diagnosis of human prion disease and reports 143 prion disease autopsies done there consecutively from 1999 to 2009. In 2008 the Castilla y Leon health service sent brain tissue from suspected variant CJD cases there, calling it the national reference laboratory, and it confirmed Spain's second and third variant CJD cases that year. The brain tissue collection began in 1998, became a biobank in 2007, and now sits as the brain bank node of the HUFA Biobanco, with about 2,500 brains reported in 2026, including those of the five people in Spain who had variant CJD. The University of Zaragoza prion centre lists it as its national partner for human autopsies of suspected prion disease. No formal designation act was found, so the exact legal basis and start date of the reference role remain unknown. Information only, not medical advice.

Key facts

  • Autopsies of human prion disease cases at HUFA were performed consecutively from 1999 to 2009 within the framework of the Spanish National CJD Surveillance System; the hospital receives patients for neuropathological autopsy mainly from the Madrid region and also from regions that lack a local reference centre.
  • The 2021 Biomolecules study of medial temporal lobe pathology used post-mortem tissue from 143 human prion disease cases from that series, sporadic, genetic and acquired, with about 90 percent typed by PrPres and/or codon 129; mixed histotypes made up 29.4 percent of sporadic CJD cases.
  • Brain handling in the series: part of the tissue frozen at minus 80 degrees C for long term storage, the rest fixed in formaldehyde, with formic acid decontamination of blocks before embedding; post-mortem intervals ran from 6 to 24 hours.
  • In 2008 the Castilla y Leon regional health service described the Hospital de Alcorcon as the national reference laboratory for suspected variant CJD, to which brain tissue was sent; anatomopathological confirmation took about one to one and a half months and the diagnosis became final once validated and registered by EUROCJD.
  • The Alcorcon reference laboratory confirmed two variant CJD cases from Castilla y Leon in 2008, which the regional service counted as Spain's second and third variant cases.
  • The hospital began keeping brain tissue in 1998 and held biobank status from 2007; 2,025 brains were stored and studied from 1998 to 2007, about 24 percent of them with a CJD form, and 543 more were added from 2007 to 2017.
  • A June 2026 EFE report gives about 2,500 donated brains, says prion-affected brains are kept in biosafety level 3 storage, and names Maria Luisa Casas as scientific director of the associated research laboratory and Carmen Guerrero, neuropathologist, as head of the neurological tissue bank (public roles only).
  • The HUFA Biobanco has four nodes, one of them the brain bank (BC-HUFA), and its neurological tissue node holds samples from years of activity as a reference hospital for brain donation and suspected CJD; the biobank has run since 2010 and has been in Spain's national biobank registry since 2013 (search excerpts only).
  • A Comunidad de Madrid epidemiological bulletin names the Alcorcon neuropathology laboratory as one of two diagnostic reference centres feeding the regional human TSE registry, the other being the ISCIII Centro Nacional de Microbiologia spongiform encephalopathies unit (search excerpt only).
  • The University of Zaragoza prion centre lists the reference centre for human autopsies of suspected prion disease at the Fundacion Hospitalaria de Alcorcon among its seven national collaborators, without dates.
  • The laboratory's published prion work is small but consistent: a 2003 BSE risk related study with the Zaragoza veterinary neuropathology group, a 2005 tissue risk classification for surgical transmission of sporadic CJD for the EUROSURGYCJD study co-written with ISCIII epidemiologists and Miguel Calero, a 2017 PET correlation case with Hospital Clinico San Carlos, and the 2021 series paper with CIEN Foundation, NEIKER and ISCIII authors.
  • The brain bank also supplies non-prion research, for example a 2022 Alzheimer hippocampal study, and the 2018 article says outside researchers can request samples through committee review.

Timeline

  1. 1998The hospital begins keeping neurological tissue, the start of the brain collection.
  2. 1999Start of the consecutive series of human prion disease autopsies at HUFA within the Spanish national CJD surveillance system, which ran to 2009.
  3. 2003J Comp Pathol bullfighting emboli study with the Zaragoza group, affiliation Laboratory of Neuropathology, Hospital Alcorcon Foundation.
  4. 2005BMC Public Health tissue risk classification for surgical transmission of sporadic CJD, first author from the Alcorcon neuropathology laboratory.
  5. 2007The collection gains biobank status.
  6. 2008Castilla y Leon reports two variant CJD cases confirmed by the Alcorcon reference laboratory, Spain's second and third.
  7. 2008Castilla y Leon describes sending brain tissue of a suspected case to Alcorcon as national reference laboratory, with final validation by EUROCJD.
  8. 2010The HUFA Biobanco starts operating with a brain bank node.
  9. 2013The biobank enters Spain's national biobank registry at its launch.
  10. 2021Biomolecules paper on 143 prion disease autopsies from the 1999 to 2009 series.
  11. 2026EFE reports about 2,500 brains held and the national CJD reference role.
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