Such neural grafts can effectively reverse motor symptoms due to the disease. 🧬
It is known that neurodegenerative diseases like Parkinson's, which affects over 10 million people worldwide, damage and destroy neurons, causing damage to the sufferer's mental and physical health.
Additional effects of Parkinson's disease can include depression, anxiety, memory deficit, hallucinations, and dementia. In the research, Kordower and his colleagues describe a process to convert non-neuronal stem cells into functioning neurons, and then transplanting these neurons to the brain, via neural grafting, in which stem cells are directly implanted in the brain.
“The major finding in the present paper is that the timing in which you give the second set of factors is critical,” Kordower says. “If you treat and culture them for 17 days, and then stop their divisions and differentiate them, that works best.”Rats treated with the 17-day iPSCs showed remarkable recovery from the motor symptoms of Parkinson’s disease. The study further demonstrated that this effect is dependent on the dose.