The trembling and rigid muscles of a man with Parkinson's disease have been cured by a transplant of his own brain cells.
The California researchers isolated and nurtured adult stem cells from his brain, cells that they reinjected.
More than two years after the experimental treatment, he has no symptoms of Parkinson's,
an incurable and fatal brain disease that starts with tremors and ends up incapacitating its victims.
Parkinson's is caused when brain cells that produce dopamine die. Dopamine is a key neurotransmitter or message-carrying chemical involved in movement.
Many different researchers are experimenting to see if these brain cells can be regenerated using stem cells, the master cells that give rise to the various different tissues in the body.
Some stem cells come from very early embryos, some from aborted or miscarried foetuses and some can be found in a person's own tissues, but they are elusive.
The head of the research team, Dr Michel Levesque, of the Cedars-Sinai Medical Centre in Los Angeles, said the patient, a nuclear engineer and jet pilot, developed Parkinson's in his 40s. The team drilled into his skull and removed a piece of his brain.
"We took a tiny piece of cortex measuring probably less than the size of a pea. What we extracted were neural stem cells or progenitor cells."
- REUTERS
nzherald.co.nz/health
