Stem cell transplantation methods.
Just a few short years ago, we still used to think that we were born with a finite number of irreplaceable neurons. However, in recent years, there has been increasingly persuasive evidence that suggests that neural stem cell (NSC) maintenance and differentiation continue to take ace throughout the mammal's lifetime. Studies suggest that neural stem cells not only persist to mammalian adulthood, but also play a continuous role in brain tissue repair throughout the organism's lifespan. These preliminary results further imply that NSC transplantation strategies might have therapeutic promise in treating neurodegenerative diseases often characterized by isolated or global neuronal and glialloss. The destruction of neural circuitry in neuropathologies such as stroke, Parkinson's disease, MS, SCI prevents signals from being sent throughout the body effectively and is devastating and necessitates a cure. NSC transplantation is among one of the foremost researched fields because it offers promising therapeutic value for regenerative therapy central nervous system (CNS) diseases. Both chemotropic and exogenous cell graft mechanisms ofCNS repair are under review for their therapeutic value and it is hoped that one day, these findings will be applied to human neurodegenerative disorders. The potential applications for NSC transplantations to treat both isolated and global neurodysfunction in humans are innumerable; these prospects include inherited pediatric neurodegenerative and metabolic disorders such as lysosomal storage diseases including leukodystrophies, Sandhoff disease, hypoxic-ischemic encephalopathy and adult CNS disorders characterized by neuronal or glial cell loss such as Parkinson's disease, multiple sclerosis, stroke and spinal cord injury.
Tran
Kimberly D
KD
UCSD School of Medicine, San Diego, California, USA.
Ho
Allen
A
Jandial
Rahul
R
D000328:Adult; D000818:Animals; D004622:Embryo, Mammalian / Q000166:cytology / Q000601:surgery; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D051379:Mice; D009474:Neurons / Q000166:cytology / Q000502:physiology*; D011247:Pregnancy; D033581:Stem Cell Transplantation / Q000379:methods*; D013234:Stem Cells / Q000166:cytology / Q000502:physiology*