Scientists have demonstrated that mobility can be restored in patients with Parkinson's disease, the major degenerative disease of the motor system worldwide. 

The experiments used stem cells to generate dopaminergic nerve cells and reactivate the production of dopamine in the brains of rats with symptoms of shaking palsy or Parkinson's disease. 

The work, led by Jorge Aceves Ruiz, emeritus researcher at the Center for Research and Advanced Studies (CINVESTAV), focused in a region near the base in which the basal ganglia are located because that is where accumulations of nerve cells that make and release neurotransmitters such as dopamine are located. The treatment they have designed and tested in the laboratory uses stem cells that develop into dopamine producers.

"Our treatment has allowed us to recover these motor impairments, which is associated with the recovery of neurons and dendritic spines of striatal neurons, which is the first thing that gets damaged in Parkinson's disease," explained Aceves Ruiz, who belongs to the permanent Seminar in Science and Technology of Mexico in the medical center “XXI Century” in Mexico City. "We found that apparently the treatment by neurogenesis allows these newly formed neurons to be able to innervate, meaning that from stem cells present in the tissue itself, cell differentiation towards dopaminergic phenotype is induced."

Four processes then occur: new dopaminergic cells send their terminals to the striatum, which functionally reinnervate neurons, induce recovery of dendritic spines and then recover the functionality of the cortical input.

Stimulating dopamine

Until 35 years ago , little was known about the basal ganglia, which are clusters of nerve cells at the base of the brain and where the different molecules that help transmit messages between neurons are produced. After studying at the University of Cambridge, Aceves Ruiz met his Argentine colleague Claudio Cuello, with whom he began conducting experiments to see if they could produce dopamine by electrical stimuli. 

"Now we know that, for example, basal ganglia are organized primarily in two ways: one that facilitates movement and one that inhibits it, under the action of dopamine," says Aceves. "We know how the neurotransmitter works, and this has enabled us to design experiments that allow us to recover motor activity, we also determined through experiments that dopamine can promote or inhibit the movement under normal conditions; the problem is knowing when it promotes and when it stops, and to perform the process it uses different receptors."

Source: Investigación y Desarrollo