An article in Science Daily describes a study at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. It is here where is has been shown that human stem cells can successfully implant themselves in the brain and then heal neurological deficits, says senior author Su-Chun Zhang, a professor of neuroscience and neurology. After the transplant, the mice scored significantly better on common tests of learning and memory in mice. To control for the damage in the brain in the experiment in the mice, the mice brain's were manipulated and deliberated damaged in the part that is involved in learning and memory.
The transplanted cells were then placed in the hippocampus,at the other end of those memory circuits. After the transferred cells were implanted, in response to chemical directions from the brain, they started to specialize and connect to the appropriate cells in the hippocampus, which is extremely significant. For more on the hippocampus, check out this sight :)
Even though this being a possibility in humans is a longggg way off, it is still crazy to think that this one day might be a possibility. The potential implications for people with brain damage or dementia is exciting, if this is transferable to humans!
This is a very interesting article. I wonder if this stem cell treatment would eventually be able to treat diseases like Alezhimers where a stem cell would have to be able to refold the denatured beta amyloid proteins. I submitted an article to be able to grow stem cells without starter tissue which would make these types of treatment less contriversial.
ReplyDeleteWow this is great! I hope this could be used for the treatment of dementia one day. My grandmother suffers from dementia and its awful to see her struggle with her loss of memory. Often you can almost see the struggle in her face as she tries to find her words and simply fails. Often times her memory loss leads to fear as at times she forgets where she is and who her family are. It is very difficult to struggle with memory loss and hopefully this technology can some day help people like my grandmother.
ReplyDeleteThis is a very interesting study and hopefully it can be transferred to humans. I also did a blog about stems cell research, but my with how two dogs were cured of arthritis by taking their fat cells denaturing to get to the stem cells then adding the stem cells with other additives back to the injured area. This too is still long off in humans, but if they do work in humans then it will be a great discovery and i feel it should be funded.
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