Stem Cells Help Primate Parkinson Symptoms

A U.S. study has demonstrated primates suffering severe Parkinson’s disease significantly improved after being injected with human neural stem cells.

Researchers from Yale, Harvard, the University of Colorado and the Burnham Institute said the primates were able to walk, move and eat better and exhibited diminished tremors after receiving the stem cells.

Although the results are promising, it will be years before it is known whether a similar procedure would have therapeutic value for humans, said Yale Professor D. Eugene Redmond Jr., lead author of the study.

Not only are stem cells a potential source of replacement cells, they also seem to have a whole variety of effects that normalize other abnormalities, Redmond said. The human neural stem cells implanted into the primates survived, migrated, and had a functional impact.

In the study five of eight monkeys with advanced Parkinson’s were injected with human neural stem cells and three received sham injections. Those injected with human neural stem cells improved progressively for the entire four-month post-treatment period and were significantly different from the monkeys that received sham injections, the researchers reported.

The study is reported in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.