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Parkinson's Stem Cell Treatment

Parkinson's disease is one of a group of neurological disorders called motor system disorders. It is a degenerative condition in which dopamine-producing brain cells are inactive or damaged resulting in the misfiring of nerve cells that are responsible for motor control. Stem cell therapies are currently being developed to re-grow these dopamine-producing brain cells.

  1. Stem Cells

    • According to the National Institutes of Health, stem cells are unspecialized cells with the potential to specialize. There are three different kinds of stem cells, including adult, tissue-specific and embryonic. Embryonic stem cells are the most versatile and can develop into a brain cell, muscle cell, red blood cell, or any other type of cell in the body.

    Applications

    • Stem cells are being used to treat a variety of diseases that involve tissue degeneration. These illnesses include: liver diseases, muscular dystrophies, ALS (Lou Gehrig's disease), Huntington's disease, rheumatoid arthritis, osteoarthritis, type 1 diabetes, heart disease, burns, stroke, spinal cord injuries, and Parkinson's disease.

    Procedure

    • According to the University of Minnesota Stem Cell Institute, treatment begins in the lab where stem cells are specialized into dopamine-producing brain cells. The modified stem cells are then transplanted into the brain of a Parkinson's patient. While human trials are still in the beginning stages, the initial results have been encouraging.

    The First Human Trial

    • According to the website LifeNews, the first adult neural stem cell transplantation was a success. In 2004, UCLA researchers injected adult stem cells into the brain of a Parkinson's patient. In 2009, the researchers published the five-year results of the study.

      "Of particular note are the striking results the study yielded---for the five years following the procedure the patient's motor scales improved by over 80 percent for at least 36 months."

    Additional Research

    • In 2010, researchers at the Yale University School of Medicine injected human endometrial (uterine) cells into the brains of mice with Parkinson's-like motor-neuron damage. The endometrial stem cells transformed into dopamine-producing brain cells inside the mice. These findings are encouraging, both because of their success and because human endometrial cells are more readily available for research than embryonic stem cells.

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