Aug. 17, 2006 — Brain cells share qualities such as adaptability and self-renewal with stem cells, suggests a new study.
In fact, a single human brain cell, or neuron, may be able to produce as many cells as exist in the brains of 50 million people. The study is the first to show that ordinary human neurons can lead to such great numbers of replacement cells, as well as morph into different cell types.
"This is a completely new source of human brain cells that can potentially be used to fight Parkinson’s disease, Alzheimer’s disease, stroke and a host of other brain disorders," said Dennis Steindler, lead author of the study, which is published in the current issue of the journal Development.
Steindler, who is the executive director of the University of Florida’s McKnight Brain Institute, added, "We could conceivably grow cells that would come to the rescue of the part of the brain that needed them, but not to build an entire brain or a complete structure. It would probably only take months to get enough material for a human transplant operation."
He explained to Discovery News that he and his team worked with mature human brain cells taken from epilepsy patients undergoing surgical treatment to ease their symptoms. The cells were extracted from tissue in the brain’s gray matter, which is not known for harboring stem cells.
The scientists then gave the cells a "bath" of growing agents, in a step somewhat like adding growth hormone to plant cuttings.
Transplanted into mouse brains, the treated cells seemed to take cues from their environment, producing new neurons that matched the surounding parts of the brain.
