Stem Cell Transplants For Parkinson’s

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A number of research groups are working on different approaches to regenerating the neurons that fail and die in Parkinson's disease. From ScienceDaily: "a human neural stem cell transplant essentially enables an animal model for Parkinson's to continue functioning normally ... researchers compared animals that received placebo treatment with those that received only protective neurotrophic factors secreted by stem cells and those that had a transplant. Animals that received transplants essentially regained control of their movement, placebo-treated animals did not recover and those that received neurotrophic factors, called stem cell factors, recovered partially. ...transplanted neural cells had formed synapses to communicate with each other and ultimately the striatum, the portion of the brain dopaminergic cells act on to control movement."

Link: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2006/12/061204123212.htm