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maybe a breakthrough in brain repair

Posted: Wed Dec 25, 2013 12:15 pm
by Cece
http://news.psu.edu/story/298921/2013/1 ... alzheimers
So several years ago, Chen's lab tested new ways to transform glial scar tissue back to normal neural tissue.

"There are more reactive glial cells and fewer functional neurons in the injury site," Chen said, "so we hypothesized that we might be able to convert glial cells in the scar into functional neurons at the site of injury in the brain. This research was inspired by the Nobel Prize-winning technology of induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) developed in Shinya Yamanaka's group, which showed how to reprogram skin cells into stem cells."
"Our dream is to develop this in vivo conversion method into a useful therapy to treat people suffering from neural injury or neurological disorders," Chen said. "Our passionate motivation for this research is the idea that an Alzheimer's patient, who for a long time was not able to remember things, could start to have new memories after regenerating new neurons as a result of our in vivo conversion method, and that a stroke victim who could not even move his legs might start to walk again."
That is a shared dream if ever there was one. Let's say angioplasty stops some of the ongoing damage and DMDs stops another type of ongoing damage and something like this NeuroD1 retrovirus discovery repairs damage. The life of a person with MS could be drastically fundamentally improved.

Re: maybe a breakthrough in brain repair

Posted: Sat Dec 28, 2013 4:23 pm
by Rogan
This is great only after the root cause of Alzheimer’s is determined and a proper fix implemented.

The thing about Alzheimer’s I have been meaning to ask pathologists about is upon autopsy the brain is half the size. Talk about atrophy.

The new research suggesting Alzheimer’s is diabetes of the brain is strange and interesting? But are diabetic kidneys half the size?

My theory is that Alzheimer’s is atherosclerosis of the brain. It’s a blood flow issue. So stem cell therapy only helps after blood circulation is improved.

Your link above might help post CCSVI treated MS folks though. Aren’t people on this board doing this today?

Thanks for the links....

Re: maybe a breakthrough in brain repair

Posted: Sat Dec 28, 2013 5:12 pm
by Cece
Rogan wrote: Aren’t people on this board doing this today?
I don't know, that's probably the stem cell subforum, and I don't get out much! :)