Staff is on-call 24 hours per day, seven days a week, to coordinate transportation of the body and perform the autopsies. The calvarium is opened, cerebrospinal fluid is removed, spun, aliquoted into separate nunc vials and frozen in a −80°C freezer. The brain is removed and weighed. The brainstem and cerebellum are dissected from the hemispheres and one hemisphere and the cerebellum are cut into 1 cm slabs in a plexiglass jig. The 1 cm slabs are frozen in a −80°C freezer and the remainder of the brain is placed in 4% paraformaldehyde. Digital pictures of the hemispheres and slabs are obtained at the time of autopsy. Beginning in 2007, the fixed hemisphere has undergone post-mortem imaging [86].
