People with Parkinson’s disease are receiving a new treatment in a clinical trial started after University of Wisconsin–Madison scientists demonstrated the safety and feasibility of the therapeutic delivery method in a study of non-human primates.
Parkinson’s disease damages neurons in the brain that produce dopamine, a brain chemical that transmits signals between nerve cells. The disrupted signals make it progressively harder to coordinate even simple movements and cause rigidity, slowness and tremors that are the disease’s hallmark symptoms. Patients are typically treated with drugs like L-DOPA to increase dopamine production. Although the drugs help many patients, they present complications and lose their effectiveness over time.
Researchers at the Wisconsin National Primate Research Center successfully grafted brain cells called dopaminergic neuronal progenitor cells into the brains of cynomolgus macaque monkeys. California-based Aspen Neuroscience provided the cells, grown from multiple lines of human induced pluripotent stem cells, along with key pieces of the equipment for delivering them to specific parts of the brain.
Read the full story here: https://news.wisc.edu/brain-cell-grafts-in-monkeys-jump-start-human-trial-for-new-parkinsons-treatment/