South Korea became an aging society in 2000 and is projected to become a super-aged society in 2026. This rapid increase of the elderly population is considered to have an impact on an increase in dementia patients that will undoubtedly increase the socio-economic burden of dementia in health sector. Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is the most common cause of dementia, accounting for approximately 70% of cases. Other common types include vascular dementia, Lewy body dementia and frontotemporal dementia.
Since there is not currently effective treatment of AD, we are in urgency to discover and develop new therapeutic targets to cope with the disease. However, in South Korea, Research and Development (R&D) infrastructures for effective AD prevention and management, together with accurate diagnosis, and drug development are absolutely lacking and fall behind advanced countries. In this regard, we have developed a dementia brain bank project for establishing brain tissue bank and standardizing a neuropathology-based diagnosis of dementia. Its specific purposes contain facilitating brain donation, establishing a center for the collection of brain tissues and setting up a standardized procedure for brain autopsy and neuropathology-based diagnosis for dementia. We expect that this project will be the sound basis for the development of R&D infrastructures for AD in the near future. This report discusses the performances and achievements of this project.