Transplant neurons in mouse brains: it works! – Begeek.fr

The team of scientists led by Afsaneh Gaillard, a researcher at the University of Poitiers in the Vienne, announced impressive results on experiments performed on mice. This team did try to make grafts neural in the laboratory mice injured brain and these experiments have experienced great success.

Yes, we can repair the brain

For the average person, a brain, it can not be repaired. Once the damage occurred on neuronal connections is irreversible. Yet! Thus says Afsaneh Gaillard: “ For a long time it was believed that the brain was a frozen body, which evolved once more injured. For ten years the discourse has changed. With our research, we work on mice for three years. We wanted animal models that mimic diseases (injuries, Parkinson …) to see if we could fix by grafting neural stem cell derivatives . “

The mouse brain has been damaged in the visual cortex and various experiments were performed. Stem cells from mouse embryos were cultured and then transplanted. The graft can only work if the still undifferentiated cells move to the desired cell type, by specific neurons in the visual cortex of the mouse. The good cells were grafted and the first results were observed after 6 months of follow-up. The cells grew well and new neural connections are created gradually reactivating previously injured brain area.

What hopes in man?

The results by the research team are very promising. We can repair the brain in mice. According Afsaneh Gaillard, the graft had worked in 61% of mice, but these results also showed the occurrence of brain tumors in 13% of the grafts, tumors related to poor differentiation of transplanted cells. You need to go further in search and refine techniques for still better results.

Afsaneh Gaillard now look forward to working with neurons adapted to the motor areas of the brain and plans to move to experiments on animals closer to humans, like monkeys. These are a lot of steps before turning to applications in humans but the prospects are so attractive that research will surely accelerate in the near future, following these excellent results.

 Photo credits: Wikimedia