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Neural stem cell therapy for neurological diseases: dreams and reality

Nature Reviews Neuroscience volume 3, pages 401–409 (2002)Cite this article

Abstract

There is a pressing need for treatments for neurodegenerative diseases. Hopes have been raised by the prospect of neural stem cell therapy; however, despite intense research activities and media attention, stem cell therapy for neurological disorders is still a distant goal. Effective strategies must be developed to isolate, enrich and propagate homogeneous populations of neural stem cells, and to identify the molecules and mechanisms that are required for their proper integration into the injured brain. This article examines these requirements, discusses the results obtained so far, and considers the steps that need to be taken to provide instruction to donor cells and to elucidate the neurogenic potential of the adult central nervous system environment.

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Figure 1: Extent of anatomical repair required to achieve significant functional recovery in different pathological conditions.
Figure 2: Instructing stem cells for transplantation.
Figure 3: Host neurogenic cues direct neuronal differentiation of multipotent donor cells.
Figure 4: The interplay between neurogenic and gliogenic signals influences the fate of transplanted cells in the injured central nervous system.

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Acknowledgements

Our work is supported by grants from the Ministero dell'Istruzione, dell'Università e della Ricerca, the Ministero della Sanità-Progetto Alzheimer, Telethon, the Associazione Italiana Ricerca sul Cancro, the Huntington's Disease Society of America and the Hereditary Disease Foundation. We thank L. Conti, R. McKay, M. Peschanski and P. Strata for helpful comments. We apologize for the omission of several beautiful papers that could not be cited owing to space limitations.

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  1. Department of Neuroscience, Ferdinando Rossi is at the Rita Levi Montalcini Center for Brain Repair, Section of Physiology, University of Turin, Corso Raffaello 30, Turin, 10125, Italy

    Ferdinando Rossi

  2. Elena Cattaneo is at the Department of Pharmacological Sciences and Center of Excellence on Neurodegenerative Diseases, University of Milano, Via Balzaretti 9, Milano, 20133, Italy

    Elena Cattaneo

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  1. Ferdinando Rossi
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DATABASES

LocusLink

BMP

EGF

erythropoietin

Fgf2

Fgf8

GFAP

huntingtin

interleukin 6

musashi 1

nestin

neurogenin

noggin

Nurr1

ShcA

ShcC

sonic hedgehog

STAT3

TGF-α

OMIM

amyotrophic lateral sclerosis

Huntington's disease

Parkinson's disease

FURTHER INFORMATION

Encyclopedia of Life Sciences

amyotrophic lateral sclerosis

Huntington disease

Parkinson disease

trophic support

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Rossi, F., Cattaneo, E. Neural stem cell therapy for neurological diseases: dreams and reality. Nat Rev Neurosci 3, 401–409 (2002). https://doi.org/10.1038/nrn809

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