In a novel study US researchers have revealed that embryonic stem cells may be used to generate about unlimited supply of the brain cells neurons which are destroyed by Alzheimer’s. The new invention could escort to new drug treatment and even neuron transplantation to mend brain damage.
Previously in Alzheimer’s the capability to recover memories is lost. There is comparatively small amount of neurons in the brain and their loss causes speedy and overwhelming effect on the capability to memorize. These cells are known as basal forebrain cholinergic neuron, which researchers have been able to generate.
Their ability to generate these cells meant that they can swiftly test thousands of different drugs to observe which ones can keep the cells alive when they are in an exigent environment. This swift testing method is known as high-throughput screening.
The research team exhibited the newly generated neurons work identical to the originals, by transplanting them into the hippocampus of mice. The neurons created axons, or connecting fibers, to the hippocampus and pumped out acetylcholine, a substance required by the hippocampus to recover memories from other parts of the brain.
According to Dr Jack Kessler from Northwestern University, now they have educated how to make these cells, they can study them in a tissue culture dish and fathom what they can do to prevent them from dying. The study author of the paper is Christopher Bissonnette who arduous for six years in Dr Kessler’s lab to break the genetic code of the stem cells to generate the neurons.
The research team from Northwestern Medicine has also invented a second new way to generate neurons. They produced human embryonic stem cells from human skin cells and then transformed these into the neurons. This avoids the thorny ethical issue of using stem cells from embryos.
These stem cell and neurons made by researchers from skin cells of three groups of people such as Alzheimer’s patients, healthy patients with an increased likelihood of developing the disease due to a family history and healthy patients with no family history of Alzheimer’s.
It provides them new way to a new way to study diseased human Alzheimer’s cells. These are real people with real disease. That’s why it’s exciting, stated Dr Kessler.