biomednet.com
Is the world ready for brain transplants?
Cell transplantation as a treatment for brain disorders is gaining a lot of interest, but the
authors of this review suggest that not all trials for such disorders should go forward just
yet. They discuss four major conditions for which clinical trials are already underway in
various centers around the world: Parkinson's disease, Huntington's disease, epilepsy,
and stroke. In the first two cases, the authors argue, there is a strong case for moving
ahead with clinical trials. Animal models have been encouraging, and researchers have a
clear understanding of why the procedure works and how it might be improved. In the
case of epilepsy and stroke, they say that animal studies have shown some improvement
following neural transplantation, but the mechanisms behind the improvement are unclear.
Without such an understanding of the underlying science, clinical trials for these disorders
are still premature. They acknowledge that decisions on whether to go ahead with clinical
trials can be difficult, especially when no good treatments are currently available, but they
emphasize the need for caution and warn against promising too much, too soon. Finally,
the authors discuss the need to find better sources of cells for transplantation, because
the most promising results have been had with cells obtained from human fetuses, which
poses an obvious ethical problem. |
