Stem cells must have proper neural instructions
 

During a lecture at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, it was mentioned that there are over 5,000 different classes of neuronal cells. This coincides with an earlier article at http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases...1127123927.htm that talks about the need for stem cells to have the proper instruction set for the damaged neuronal cells they are needed to replace.

During this lecture, it was also mentioned that when the axons attempt to connect to dendrites, they also must have the proper instructions in the form of a "may connect" or "may not connect." This binary 'yes/no' system is used throughout the brain. This is a big part of the slow nature of brain development. The axons must go through billions of these trial and error attempts to attach to the correct dendrites. Each neuron has up to 10,000 axons so this is obviously a very complex network.

*Stem cell therapy is being researched to rescue damaged neurons. It is hoped to help with brain injuries. It has show to be effective in newly damaged mouse and human brain cells in-vitro (lab test tube). If this therapy is reproducible in humans,* If this stem cell therapy is reproducible, it appears that it would require the stem cell rescue therapy be applied in the first day or so after the concussion.

As most PCS symptoms are not evident during those first few days, it would be problematic to get a concussion sufferer this level of intensive and likely expensive treatment during the first days' window of opportunity.

This would also require an inventory of pluripotent stem cells sitting on the shelf ready for transplant.

This rescue therapy may be worthwhile for comatose head injury patients. The risk/benefit/cost ratio will be much better. I wonder if the steroids used to prevent brain swelling and the drugs that maintain coma are compatible with these stems cells? If there are open wounds and/or surgery issues, then antibiotics may also come into play. **

What does this mean to PCS sufferers?

Good question.

Most likely it means that stem cell therapies for PCS sufferers are improbable.

**

The simple need for the damaged neuron rescue type of stem cell therapy to take place while the damaged cells are still alive makes this therapeutic window very short.

The scientists had hoped that the stem cells would identify the surrounding cell's instructions and adapt to them, thus becoming the specialized neural cell needed at that specific location. When they discovered that this does not happen, they had to look to other ways to 'repair' damaged neuronal cells rather than 'grow' new neurons.

Maybe there will come a day when any head injury is immediately treated with a stem cell cocktail that can rescue the damaged cells.

This will mean that only the damaged cells can be repaired. The cells that have died or are beyond rescue will likely be lost permanently.

This still leaves some hope for Parkinson's and Alzheimer's since those diseases start with weakened and damaged cells. Hopefully, those cells can be rescued.

This brings to mind the philosophical question: Where does the soul and/or emotional mind reside? Is it limited in its ability to recover/grow/heal?

Oh. Well, that's really sad to hear. :(

Hopefully, knowing this will help people accept their current condition and learn to work with it. There are many things we can do to improve our lives without any miraculous healing.

There are very few things that I cannot get done one way or the other. These work-arounds and other accommodations allow me to have a high level of functioning. The struggles that persist have given me a new understanding of the day to day struggles of many people in our society.

Eddy, What are you biggest struggles? Maybe we can help you find ways of getting past these struggles. I think this is the strongest value of this forum.

Eddyshead

I would suggest you also do your own research on the subject as opinions differ among patients and professionals on the viability of stem cell treatment

Mark is presenting his interpretation of the results

others may interpret it differently

Eddy,

Read the article I provided a link to in the first post on this thread. This is not my interpretation.

Here is a direct quote form the link at http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases...1127123927.htm:

<An MIT research team's latest finding suggests that stem cell therapies for the brain could be much more complicated than previously thought.

MIT scientists report that adult stem cells produced in the brain are pre-programmed to make only certain kinds of connections- - making it impossible for a neural stem cell originating in the brain to be transplanted to the spinal cord, for instance, to take over functions for damaged cells.

Some researchers hope to use adult stem cells produced in the brain to replace neurons lost to damage and diseases such as Alzheimer's. The new study calls this into question.

"It is wishful thinking to hope that adult stem cells will be able to modify themselves so that they can become other types of neurons lost to injury or disease," said Carlos E. Lois, assistant professor of neuroscience in MIT's Picower Institute for Leaning and Memory.>

Another article references stem cells for neural cell rescue: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases...0201171754.htm

The pertinent quote is <The new report, co-authored by several international research groups and led by Karolinska Institutet, shows that stem cells transplanted into damaged or threatened nerve tissue quickly establish direct channels, called gap junctions, to the nerve cells. Stem cells actively bring diseased neurons back from the brink via cross-talk through gap junctions, the connections between cells that allow molecular signals to pass back and forth. The study found that the nerve cells were prevented from dying only when these gap junctions were formed. The results were obtained from mice and human stem cells in cultivated brain tissue, and from a series of rodent models for human neurodegenerative diseases and acute brain injuries.>

The report about 5000 different neuronal cell classes is available online at: http://www.researchchannel.org/prog/...=29385&fID=679

It is a 58 minute lecture with graphic demonstrations and live video presentations of microscopic events. You can actually see the brain cells make connections. Well worth the time. The lecturer is very good at presenting information. The part about 5000 cell classes is about 5 to 10 minutes in.

The summary quote tells the basic point
<Thomas M. Jessel, Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigator, explores the human brain, the sophisticated product of 500 million years of vertebrate evolution, assembled during just nine months of embryonic development. The functions encoded by its trillion nerve cells direct all human behavior. Yet the brain is a biological organ made from the same building blocks as skin, liver and lung. How does the brain acquire its remarkable computational power? Answers lie in the details of its construction -- the cellular and molecular mechanisms that drive the formation of thousands of neural circuits, each wired for a specific behavior. >

So, you can do further research on these and other web sites **

If you think I have mis-stated anything, PM me or post here openly. I am not afraid of criticism. Wisdom is gained by learning from errors, not denying them.

Oh, my biggest struggle is probably my goddamn vision. I mean, my memory and concentration is bad but I can practice that those. I've been trying to keep myself sharp with memory games and taking moments out of the day (every hour or so) to recall everything that occurred before then.

But my vision, not being able to read anything directly or pick up on details out of my center of vision. I use to draw, I use to be incredibly visual. Being limited to center of view is a little debilitating. The sensitivity to light is bothersome as well. Lately I've been going "screw it" and trying to operate around this blurry view. Maybe hoping that somehow this "exercise" will strengthen my vision. It probably won't, but it'll probably help me become more accommodated.

Eddy,

Have you been examined by a neuro-ophthalmologist? Your vision problems should be looked into by a specialist.

I wear photo-sensitive glasses to help with the bright lights. Also, a wide brimmed hat helps. I have had to deal with bright lights for decades. I always have as hat when outside.

Eddy,

Chemar couldn't be more correct. To my knowledge, no one that visits here has the credentials to be giving anyone advice on anything. None of us hold phd's or medical degrees. Most of what is posted on here comes from people's experiences and interpretations of what they read on the internet. These can, of course, be skewed by the person who is posting the information. Even myself, with a degree in molecular biology and experience as a medical researcher, would never claim to be an authority on anything related to the nervous system, and I hope that any info I post is scrutinized and not just taken at face value. .

My opinion on the purpose of this forum is simply to make offer support to brain injury survivors and to make them aware of what is going on out there in "science land" so that they can read it for themselves and discuss these things with their medical professionals. So, please anytime anyone offers an opinion on what is occurring in "science land" please take it with a grain of salt.