A potential treatment for Parkinson's disease can be in an unusual place: the body of the carotid artery, a small organ in the neck. In February the number of Neuron José López-Barneo and colleagues at the University of Seville in Spain reported that in rats, the carotid body cells-transplanted animals neck in their brains reverse symptoms of an experimental form of dementia.
normal work of the carotid body, nestled in the carotid artery, is to signal your brain to increase your breathing if your oxygen levels in the blood drop too low. The main interest of López-Barneo was in how the carotid body-cells captures the lower oxygen levels in the blood. But, he recalls, colleagues kept stressing that these cells could make excellent candidates for transplantation into the brains of Parkinson's patients to correct their shortcomings. Indeed, movement problems and other symptoms of the disease are caused by the death of neurons, in a part of the brain called the substantia nigra that produce the neurotransmitter dopamine. And because the carotid body-cells are much dopamine, they might be able to compensate for the loss of normal dopamine-producing neurons.
To find out, the Seville team turned to a common animal model for Parkinson screening potential therapies. This involves killing the neurons of the substantia nigra on one side of the rat brain, which then develop an imbalance of movement which causes them to turn around, and exhibiting other symptoms. When the researchers transplanted into the damaged side rats pieces of brain carotid body, they found that the grafts not only survived, but reversed the animals of symptoms, including the imbalance of the movement. There were even indications that the cells could be the production of growth factors that promote the substantia nigra cells remaining to sprout new connections.
These results are "quite fascinating, very promising," said neuroscientist Arnon Rosenthal, who works on Parkinson therapies in the biotechnology company Genentech Inc. in South San Francisco. Carotid-body cells will pass much more testing before researchers can even consider trying them on patients, however, Rosenthal said, they may have an advantage over therapeutic potential competitor. transplantation of fetal neurons Because the cells of the carotid produce so much dopamine. - up to 45 times the fetal neurons - and because they thrive in relatively low concentrations of oxygen in the brain, he says, they can do a better job to correct the symptoms of Parkinson that fetal cells make - and they raise fewer ethical issues
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