Recent medical research has discovered another promising use for stem cells: neural tissue regeneration.
Previously, most scientists believed that neural damage was permanent, because neural cells do not replicate like other cells. All other cells within the human body replicate by halving each cell through the process of mitosis. Many believed that neural damage sustained for six months or more is irreversible, but research conducted at Stanford University School of Medicine is suggesting otherwise. The Stanford study involved 18 stroke patients whose strokes had occurred six months to three years prior to entering the study.
Professor Gary Steinberg, chair of neurosurgery and co-director of the Stanford Stroke Center, has practiced neurosurgery at Stanford for over 29 years. One of his ongoing studies on stroke patients explores the brain’s ability for self-repair after stimulation with stem cells. Patients previously confined to wheelchairs began to walk, taking their first steps for a second time. “The remarkable recovery we saw … was quite surprising,” marveled Steinberg.
Steinberg and his peers believe similar stem cell therapy could provide a hopeful possibility for patients with Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s and Lou Gehrig’s diseases. “This could revolutionize our concept of what happens after not only stroke, but traumatic brain injury and even neurodegenerative disorders,” Steinberg explained to The Telegraph. “We thought these brain circuits were dead and we’ve learned that they’re not.”
Some scientists hope to use stem cells to regenerate brain dead patients. Brain death occurs when all functions of the brain cease, a complete and irreversible state of being. In contrast to brain dead patients who cannot wake up, patients in a vegetative coma could wake and recover fully. Scientists at Bioquark Inc and Revita Life Science India have teamed up on the ReAnima Project, which has been given the green light to begin tests on brain regeneration. The ReAnima Project hopes to reboot the brains of 20 patients who have been declared brain dead using stem cell therapy, a procedure shown to help patients recover from vegetative comas.
The ReAnima Project will use brain imaging equipment to look at brain activity particularly in the lowest region of the brain, the upper spinal cord. This portion of the spinal cord controls the heartbeat and independent breathing. The introduction of stem cells to brain tissue may erase the individual’s history and allow for a re-start to life, the researchers said.
The exploration of brain tissue regeneration would not literally bring people back from the dead, yet this study takes “another step toward the eventual reversal of death in our lifetime,” Dr. Ira Pastor, CEO of Bioquark Inc., told “The Telegraph.”
