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Tracy Hampton, PhD

JAMA. 2007;298:165.

	Since this article does not have an abstract, we have provided the first 150 words of the full text and any section headings.

Brain implants of human neural stem cells can ease the Parkinson symptoms in primates with a chemically induced form of the disease, according to new research (Redmond DE et al. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA. doi: 10.1073/pnas.0704091104; published online ahead of print June 11, 2007).

Prior to implantation, African green monkeys with Parkinson disease had difficulty walking, moving, and eating, and they experienced head and limb tremors. But 2 months after receiving injections of neural stem cells from a human fetal cadaver, the animals improved progressively compared with sham-injected controls.

To understand the basis for this functional recovery, brain sections from the treated monkeys were analyzed to assess the fate of donor and host cells. The investigators found that some of the implanted human stem cells developed into dopamine-producing neurons, but many more formed supportive astrocytes that help regulate the chemical environment around nerve cells and . . . [Full Text of this Article]