Simulated surgical-type ce post-mortem brains allow

Full list of author information is available at the end of the articleBackground Despite significant advances in neuroradiological tech-niques and the emergence of possible biomarkers [1,2] the gold standard for diagnosis of neurodegenerative diseases remains the histological examination of post mortem brain tissue on the background of clinical evaluation. As new targeted therapies emerge the accurate diagnosis of neurodegenerative diseases in life may well become even more important. In theory, definitive diagnosis of several neurodegenerative diseases in life can be made on a surgi-cally removed brain biopsy. There are, however, inherent risks associated with brain biopsies including seizures, bleeding and infection [3-5]. Whilst these risks are often deemed acceptable when attempting to diagnose poten-tially treatable severe conditions such as brain tumours, ethically there is much greater difficulty in justifying biopsies in non-tumour conditions where few treatmen