One of the most worrying degenerative illnesses, Parkinson's disease treatments have tried to improve the life of patients for decades, but it seems there are news of new stem cell that could potentially stop the disease from worsening.
According to Science Codex, stem cell research has come upon a new breakthrough regarding Parkinson's disease treatment, a degenerative illness for which no cure has been found yet.
Parkinson's is a serious degenerative disorder that affects the body's central nervous system, and its early symptoms are mostly related to movement, such as shaking and having difficulty walking. Scientifically, it is caused by the gradual loss of the cells that produce dopamine in the brain.
While there is no cure for the condition, Parkinson's disease treatments include antics such as slowing down the progress of the malady and stimulating the brain through a "brain peacemaker," according to Medical News Today.
However, due to the advances of stem cell research, it seems that a new Parkinson's disease treatment has been uncovered, though it is yet to be tested in human subjects.
New research from Sweden's Lund University has shown that embryonic stem cells taken from human subjects can potentially produce new dopamine cells in rodents. The human embryonic cells were transplanted to rats' brains and the results showed the production of new dopamine cells.
The findings that could lead to a new potential Parkinson's disease treatment were published by researchers in the medical journal Cell Stem Cell, in a study called "Human ESC-Derived Dopamine Neurons Show Similar Preclinical Efficacy and Potency to Fetal Neurons when Grafted in a Rat Model of Parkinson's Disease."
The scientists involved in the paper were Lund University's Shane Grealish, Elsa Diguet, Agnete Kirkeby, Bengt Mattsson, Andreas Heuer, Yann Bramoulle, Nadja Van Camp, Anselme L. Perrier, Philippe Hantraye, Anders Björklund and Malin Parmar.
According to The Tech Times, the investigation meant a bigger-scale process: beforehand, the researchers destroyed cells that produced dopamine in the brain of a rat, mimicking the process that would go on in a real case that would require Parkinson's disease treatment.
After this first step, the team went on to convert embryonic stem cells (hESCs for short) into cells that could produce dopamine, later injecting said cells into the brains of the rats studied in the research.
Amazingly enough, the research team discovered that after this process, the loss and damage they had previously made to the brains of the rodents was completely restored. In other words, their findings showed that, at least in these animals, it is possible to create new cells that could battle the degenerative disease.
According to professor Parmar, one of the leading researchers in the paper, the study basically found that the cells prepared from hESCs worked just as well as the original ones.
This could potentially mean a true breakthrough when it comes to Parkinson's disease treatment, which up to now has mostly focused on slowing down the disease through different medications. The idea that the condition could be directly battled by creating new cells would stop altogether the disease from damaging the body, perhaps even curing it altogether.
The new challenge is to try out the new Parkinson's disease treatment on human subjects, but it might be a while until it has been perfected enough for human trials.
"These cells have the same ability as the brain's normal dopamine cells to not only reach, but also to connect to their target area over longer distances," said professor Parmar, speaking of the new breakthrough. "This has been our goal for some time, and the next step is to produce the same cells under the necessary regulations for human use."
