“Latest Stem Cells News”

A novel pathway of stem cell activity in human brain that represents potential targets of brain injuries affecting newborns has been identified by researchers at Barrow Neurological Institute at St. Joseph’s Hospital and Medical Center. The recent study, which raises new questions of how the brain evolves, is published in the current issue of Nature, one of the world’s most cited scientific journals.

Nader Sanai, MD, director of Barrow’s Brain Tumor Research Center, led this study, which is the first developmental study of human neural stem cells in a region of the brain called the subventricular zone, the tissue structure in which brain stem cells reside. Also participating in the study were researchers from University of California San Francisco and the University of Valencia in Spain.

The findings revealed that there is a pathway of young migrating neurons targeting the prefrontal cortex of the human brain in the first few months of life. After the first year of life, the subventricular zone of the brain slows down, tapering production of new brain cells by the time a child is 18-months and then to nearly zero by age two. This revelation settles conflicting prior reports that suggested that human neural stem cell cells remain highly active into adulthood.

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Steven Goldman, M.D., Ph.D.

Scientists have created a way to isolate neural stem cells – cells that give rise to all the cell types of the brain – from human brain tissue with unprecedented precision, an important step toward developing new treatments for conditions of the nervous system, like Parkinson’s and Huntington’s diseases and spinal cord injury.

The work by a team of neuroscientists at the University of Rochester Medical Center was published in the Nov. 3 issue of the Journal of Neuroscience. Neurologist Steven Goldman, M.D., Ph.D., chair of the Department of Neurology, led the team.

The latest paper marks a six-year effort by Goldman’s team to develop a better way to isolate pure preparations of neural stem cells directly from the human brain. These stem cells can renew themselves and have the potential to become a number of brain cell types – for instance, oligodendrocytes that might help people with multiple sclerosis, or neurons to help people with Parkinson’s disease. But after the first few months of human embryonic development, they become rare in the brain, and it’s challenging for scientists to find, isolate and manipulate them. Yet those challenges must be met if stem cells are to live up to their promise as treatments for a host of human diseases of the nervous system.

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Scientists in the US have made a major breakthrough that has the potential for people with brain damage, caused by epilepsy or Parkinson’s for example, to use their own brain stem cells as a treatment.

Steven Roper of the University of Florida discovered that stem cells from the human brain that were transplanted into the brains of newborn rats matured and were able to function just like native rat cells.

The researchers found that the adult stem cells had the ability to turn into all types of brain tissue in the rats, including the neocortex, which deals with higher processing, and the hippocampus, involved in memory and spatial awareness.

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Neurodegenerative conditions are, at this point, diseases that cannot be treated, and that progress until they finally claim the lives of their victims. They include such awful disorders as Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s and Huntington’s, whose effects on the human brain can, at this point, only be postponed and alleviated, but not prevented or treated. Now, a new type of treatment, relying heavily on the power of stem cells, may offer a ray of hope to people suffering from these diseases.

In lab tests, researchers injected stem cells into the brain of animal models. The cells were harvested from the animals’ own spinal cords, and only the mesenchymal variety was used. Once inside, the cells proved to be able to identify the damaged neural tissue, move to it, and then started acting locally to repair the damage. While the experts recognize the fact that further studies to test the effects of this treatment are still in order, they are happy to announce that the stem cells managed to halt neural deterioration, and also that they showed signs of trying to revert the affected tissue back to its original function.

“By monitoring the motion of these cells, you get information about how viable they are, and how they can benefit the tissue. We have been able to prove that these stem cells travel within the brain, and only travel where they are needed. They read the chemical signaling of the tissue, which indicate[s] areas of stress. And then they go and try to repair the situation,” Tel Aviv university School of Chemistry Professor Dr. Yoram Cohen explains. He has been the leader of the team that made the discovery, and also an author of a paper detailing the finds, published in the latest issue of the journal Stem Cells.

After injecting the animals with the cells, the team watched their effects via Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI), where the stem cells appeared as little, black dots. Each of the cells was individually tagged with iron oxide nanoparticles, so as to show up on the monitors. “Cells that go toward a certain position that needs to be rescued are the best indirect proof that they are live and viable. If they can migrate towards the target, they are alive and can read chemical signaling,” Cohen says, quoted by e! Science News.

from Softpedia

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Progress has been made against strokes thanks to stem cells. British researchers, thanks to these cells, have managed to repair brain tissue damaged by a stroke. The study, financed by the research council on biological and biotechnological sciences of the United Kingdom, was published in Nature Biomaterials. The team from the Institute of Psychiatry at the University of Nottingham, used a biodegradable polymer called Plga to build a scaffold for neural cells.

Using these they filled the cavity left by a stroke. This allows, explained Mike Modo, psychiatrist at King’s College in London and coordinator of the study, “stem cells to create connections with the other cells, contributing to the re-stabilization of the damaged tissue”. One of the main obstacles for scientists has been overcome in this way: normally, stem cells do not find any support in the cerebral area affected

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