Neurotransplantation and Gene Transfer

Abstract

Research on the nervous system has been intensified over the last decades and still is booming. Basic neuroscience has dramatically increased the knowledge of cellular and molecular mechanisms of brain functioning. As a result cellular and molecular disarrangements that go with the variety of neurological, neurodegenerative and psychiatric disorders have been identified, although the primary causes of these disorders remain largely unknown. In cases of acquired or degenerative loss of nervous functions, pharmacological treatments are still mainly directed towards the amelioration of symptoms and the limitation of secondary tissue damage. This clinical problem together with the development of new potential therapeutic techniques such as cell grafting or implantation and gene transfer, have led to the exploration of interventions in the nervous system that can tentatively be called “restorative neurosurgery”. A shift from animal experimentation to clinical trials occurred rapidly and experimental neurotransplantation surgery in patients with neurological and neurodegenerative disorders has taken place over several decades. Neuroscience, however, is just beginning to explore cellular and molecular interventions in diseased, degenerating or traumatised human nervous systems. Are we approaching an era of interventions in the brain that will revolutionise treatment of thus far untreatable brain disorders?