Dec. 20 (UPI) -- New stem cells could bring a cure for seizures and boost to cognitive function in the brain for some patients, new research says.
A study published Tuesday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences detailed how researchers implanted stem cell-derived GABAergic cells into the hippocampus of an animal model -- and the surprising effect they had.
The hippocampus area of the brain contains inhibitory neurons that are supposed to regulate excitatory neurons. When there aren't enough inhibitory neurons in the hippocampus, or they just stop working, the excitatory neurons fire off wildly, causing seizures.
The same part of the brain also influences learning, memory and mood.
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GABAergic cells tamp down excitatory neurons in the hippocampus that needlessly fire off, causing epileptic seizures.
"What we did is transplant human induced pluripotent stem cell-derived GABAergic progenitor cells into the hippocampus in an animal model of early temporal lobe epilepsy," Ashok K. Shetty, a professor in the Department of Molecular and Cellular Medicine at the Texas A&M College of Medicine and study author, said in a press release.
Epilepsy often develops after a head injury, and post-traumatic injury causes about 20 percent of seizures, according to the Epilepsy Foundation.
About 3.4 million people in the United States have active epilepsy, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevent reports.
"This publication by Dr. Shetty and his colleagues is a major step forward in treating otherwise incurable diseases of the brain," said Darwin J. Prockop, the Stearman Chair in Genomic Medicine, director of the Texas A&M Institute for Regenerative Medicine and a professor at the Texas A&M College of Medicine. "One important aspect of the work is that the same cells can be obtained from a patient."
This type of process, called autologous transplant, is patient specific, meaning that there would be no risk of rejection of the new neurons and the person wouldn't need anti-rejection medication, he said.
"We will need to make sure that we're doing more good than harm," Shetty said. "Going forward, we need to make sure that all of the cells transplanted have turned into neurons, because putting undifferentiated pluripotent stem cells into the body could lead to tumors and other problems."
The researchers will now see if this transplant method will work with chronic epilepsy, especially drug-resistant epilepsy, that can bring on depression, memory problems and a death rate up to 10 times higher than the U.S. population.
"A great deal of research is required before patients can be safely treated," Prockop said. "But this publication shows a way in which patients can someday be treated with their own cells for the devastating effects of epilepsy but perhaps also other diseases such as Parkinsonism and Alzheimer's disease."
