Repairing Brain Damage
Repairing brain damage has come one step closer. As a Swiss research team discovered that an animals brain cells, can be used to replace neurons which have degenerated in primates who have simulated asymptomatic Parkinson’s disease, providing a degree of protection for the brain and even potentially being useful in brain damage and in restoring function to the brain. The adult monkey brain cells, were obtained from cortical biopsy and kept in culture for a few weeks.
“We aimed at determining whether auto grafted cells derived from cortical grey matter, cultured for one month and re-implanted in the caudate nucleus of dopamine depleted primates, effectively survived and migrated,” was said by Dr. Jean-Francoise Brunet who, with colleagues, published the study in Cell Transplantation (18:7) (freely available). “The autologous, re-implanted cells survived at an impressively high rate of 50 percent for four months post-implantation.”.
The usage of neural grafts to improve function post lesions or degeneration of the central nervous system has already been discovered, however, this study indicated that it is possible to replace depleted neurons in a restricted brain area and to negate any of the controversies accompanying fetal cell transplants as well as immune rejection which hamper progress.
Researchers saw that the new cells migrated, re-implanted into the right caudate nucleus, and went through the corpus callosum reaching the contralateral striatum. The cells were found in the dopamine depleted region of the caudate nucleus. This study was replicated in primates with the same success that the research team had reported using laboratory mice. According to the researchers, the cultured cells exhibited neural progenitor characteristics which may make them useful for brain repair which would be needed after brain damage. “Our results confirm that adult brain cells can be obtained, cryopreserved and kept in culture before being re-implanted in the donor where they survive in vivo for at least four months,” said Dr. Brunet and colleagues.
This procedure gives hope that brain damage can be reversed, as to keep a body fit and healthy it is not only required to maintain but also to be able to enact repairs in case of accidents.
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