Stem Cell therapy for Neurological Disorders: Life saver or threat

It is claimed in medical reports that stem cells is used in patients suffering from neurological disorders. But it is a stormily debate among researchers and medical experts. Some view this therapy as a lifesaving capsule where as others feared about the consequences of inducing this treatment. Today, people are excited to know that medical specialists have options to treat irreversible ailment of the brain such as onset neurodegenerative disorders like Parkinson’s disease, younger onset inflammatory diseases such as multiple sclerosis or even conditions in which there is an inborn fault of metabolism.

Stem cells are part of the body’s normal repair system which substitutes dented or dying cells where possible. In Stem cell therapy, medical experts introduce cells into the damaged tissue in order to treat the disorder or the injury. Stem cells have not yet developed to perform a particular function and are described as unspecialised. Each stem cell has capacity to develop into one of a number of different specialised cell types depending on the body’s needs at a particular time. The stem cells have potential to self-renew and also augment further generation of cells that can reproduce.

Stem-cell-based technology offers miraculous prospects for the future. These embrace the ability to reproduce human tissues and potentially healing damaged organs such as the brain, spinal cord, vertebral column and the eye, where doctors provide supportive care to prevent the situation from worsening.

Neurological diseases are mainly the outcome of a loss of neurons and glial cells in the central nervous system (CNS) or peripheral nervous system. For these irreversible neurological disorders, there is no effectual treatment and patients have to live with these diseases till death.  With the emergence of stem cell therapy, there is a great hope for a promising treatment for these neurological ailments. Many medical professionals visualized stem cell therapy as one of the advanced treatment options for range of mental disorders such as Autism, Cerebral Palsy, Mental retardation, Muscular Dytrophy, Spinal Cord Injury, Paralysis, Brain Stroke, Cerebellar Ataxia and Others. This treatment has the potential to restore and repair the damaged neural tissue at molecular, structural and functional level.

Treatment of neurological diseases is highly challenging for psychiatrists because of limited neuron regeneration. Regrettably, available treatment portions do not provide good solutions to regenerate neurons, at the same time cannot prevent loss of neurons. So, neural stem cell therapies are really great option to treat neurodegenerative disorders.

Some of the neurological disorders are categorized below:

Alzheimer disease: This is most common age related neurodegenerative ailment. Millions of people around the globe are affected with Alzheimer disease. Alzheimer disease is characterized by cardinal changes in the brain. It is an irreversible, progressive brain disorder that gradually impairs memory and thinking skills, and eventually the ability to perform the simplest tasks. It is shown in psychiatric researches that embryonic stem cells may support effectually in Alzheimer's disease, a progressive and deadly disorder that vitiates and destroy brain cells.

Parkinson’s disease: It is multifactorial neurodegenerative disease characterized by loss of A9 dopaminergic neurons in the substantia nigra pars compacta of the mid brain. This neurological disorder is a progressive syndrome of the nervous system that affects movement. It develops slowly, sometimes starting with a barely obvious tremor in just one hand. In brief, it can be said that a person's brain slowly stops producing a neurotransmitter known as dopamine. With less and less dopamine, a person has less and less ability to control their movements, body and emotions. Though this is not deadly disorder but complications are complex. Stem cells therapy is helpful to people suffering from Parkinson's, a neurodegenerative disorder that can cause inflexibility on limbs, motor skills and speech problems. Medical studies revealed that embryonic stem cells can help in motivating the dopamine making neurons that Parkinson's patient requires.

 

Huntington disease: It is a progressive, fatal, monogenic neurodegenerative disease. Hungtington disease is caused by an expansion of triplet region of polyglutamine repeats in the Huntingtin protein. There is no proven medical therapy available to alleviate its clinical manifestations.

Multiple sclerosis: It is a chronic neurodegenerative demyelinating disorder. Multiple sclerosis is long-term disease that can affect brain, spinal cord, and the optic nerves in eyes. This neurological disorder create problems with vision, balance, muscle control, and other basic body functions. Stem cell therapy is a principally experimental treatment for multiple sclerosis and is being tested in clinical trials.

Major threat to stem cell therapies is the unfettered commercial markets. These include both autologous treatments, re-injecting a patient’s own cells to new locations, and allogeneic treatments where donor cells are transplanted to patients.

Recently, medical professionals and scientists greatly use of stem cells for the treatment of neurological diseases. They apply different sources of cells for transplantation such as neural progenitor cells, neural stem cells, or embryonic stem cells.  But a miraculous research of stem cell therapy is highly beneficial for array of neurological disorders of person that totally make their life hell.