Breakthrough in the treatment of congenital brain defects
Israeli scientists have managed to cure congenital brain defects in laboratory mice by implanting stem cells into the damaged brain.
It is extremely difficult to treat such defects even in laboratory conditions, because, unlike acquired brain diseases, they are caused by multiple injuries of different parts of the brain, which are not always interconnected. Therefore, with congenital brain disorders, doctors cannot always understand exactly where the source of this or that anomaly lies. However, in the experiments of scientists from the Hebrew University, the implanted stem nerve cells themselves spread to the damaged areas and "triggered" tissue regeneration processes there.
Rats born with severe congenital brain defects after their pregnant mothers were exposed to harmful chemicals recovered almost completely after treatment and demonstrated a normal level of learning ability.
At the same time, it is important that the cells of the recipient animal itself were taken as the starting material for implantation. With the help of genetic engineering methods, the properties of universal stem neurons were returned to them, after which they were implanted into the affected brain of laboratory mice.
The study conducted by a group of biologists led by Professor Yossi Yanai of the Hebrew University has aroused great interest in international scientific circles, an article about it opens the latest issue of the prestigious scientific journal Molecular Psychiatry, the press service of the Hebrew University reports.
Now scientists are working on simplifying the method of implanting stem cells into the brain in order to make it less traumatic and invasive, i.e. acceptable for use in the clinic.