Possible Future Treatment for Parkinson's Disease?
When most people reach for a pen, their body acts in one smooth and controlled movement. This is because the instant a person thinks of grabbing the pen, a series of nerve cells fire in an orchestrated symphony from the brain to the muscles responsible for that action. For the movement to be precise and smooth, all the nerve cells in the "grabbing-the-pen network" must function properly, including cells that tell unneeded muscles to stay still.
In Parkinson's disease, the brain cells responsible for keeping unneeded muscles from moving degenerate and die. This results in progressively more dramatic and uncontrolled movements, tremors, and spasms. To date, there is no cure for Parkinson's disease because no one has figured out a way to bring back the specialized nerve cells that have died.
Because Parkinson's disease results from the loss of one specific type of nerve cell, stem cells offer a very tangible possibility for treatment. Researchers have recently learned how to differentiate embryonic stem cells into the specific type of brain cell that is lost in Parkinson's disease. They have also successfully transplanted adult nerve stem cells into rat brains. When this technique is proven to be effective and safe, transplantation of stem cells into the brains of patients may one day allow doctors to reverse the burden of Parkinson's disease and restore control of movement.
Another strategy currently under study is the addition of chemicals or growth factors that aim to induce the patient's own stem cells to repair the damaged nerves without needing to grow and transplant stem cells.