The role of cell based therapy in the treatment of Parkinson’s disease

Abstract

Parkinson's disease (PD) is considered to be the second common neurodegenerative illness after Alzheimer's disease worldwide. It affects 1-2% of the world population. PD is associated with motor symptoms such as bardykinesia, resting tremor, muscle rigidity. Additionally, non-motor symptoms of PD include sleep disturbance, depression and postural instability. These all PD symptoms are attributed to the selective and progressive degeneration of dopaminergic neurons in the substantia nigra pars compacta. A number of pharmacological agents are today available for the treatment of PD. These medications are associated with adverse drug events or lack of efficacy in some patients. Therefore it is required to explore novel methods for the treatment of PD i.e., cell based therapy. A number of cell based therapeutics is tried for the treatment of PD such as embryonic stem cells, induced pluripotent stem cells and somatic stem cells. Although this novel method proved to be effective in PD treatment in animal and clinical studies. But on the other hand it leads to the worsening of the non-motor symptoms. Thus, these studies are not enough, more long term clinical trials are required to proof the efficacy of all aspects of PD through cell based therapy including non-motor symptoms.