Une équipe japonnaise à étudier les effets de cette acide avec des cellules souches neurales dans un modèle de lésion médullaire. Les résultats s'avèrent très encourageant sachant que cette acide est déjà utilisées comme traitement pour l'épilepsie. L'article est en anglais si une personne veut le traduire...
Neural stem cells continue to show promise in spinal cord injury treatment Stepahead Comment:
A team in Japan has produced a substantial degree of recovery in paralyzed mice by transplanting neural stem cells (NSCs) into the spinal cord and then administering a commonly used drug in humans, Valproic acid (marketed as Depakote). When NSCs are left to their own devices they primarily will differentiate into glial cells instead of neurons. The work described below demonstrates that Valproic acid can drive differentiation of NSCs to neurons while they are developing in vivo. This in itself is a significant finding, but they also showed that the new neurons could produce recovery of function by forming relays with existing native neurons. This occurred in the absence of regeneration of the endogenous neurons. Since both NSCs and Valproic acid have been used in humans previously this combination may present an opportunity for human treatment.
Repairing Spinal Cord Injury With Manipulated Neural Stem Cells
Public release date: 8-Aug-2010
ScienceDaily (Aug. 18, 2010) — One of the most common causes of disability in young adults is spinal cord injury. Currently, there is no proven reparative treatment. Hope that neural stem cells (NSCs) might be of benefit to individuals with severe spinal cord injury has now been provided by the work of a team of researchers, led by Kinichi Nakashima, at Nara Institute of Science and Technology, Japan, in a mouse model of this devastating condition.
In the study, mice with severe spinal cord injury were transplanted with NSCs and administered a drug known as valproic acid, which is used in the treatment of epilepsy. The valproic acid promoted the transplanted NSCs to generate nerve cells, rather than other brain cell types, and the combination therapy resulted in impressive restoration of hind limb function. The authors hope that this approach, whereby the fate of transplanted NSCs is manipulated, for example by administration of valproic acid, could be developed as an effective treatment for severe spinal cord injury.
In an accompanying commentary, Tamir Ben-Hur, at Hadassah Hebrew University Medical School, Israel, highlights the impressive functional recovery attained using this approach but cautions that further work is needed before it can be determined whether this approach will work in human patients.
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TITLE: Neurons derived from transplanted neural stem cells restore disrupted neuronal circuitry in a mouse model of spinal cord injury
AUTHOR CONTACT: Kinichi Nakashima Graduate School of Biological Sciences, Nara Institute of Science and Technology, Ikoma, Japan. Phone: 81.743.72.5471; Fax: 81.743.72.5479; Email: kin@bs.naist.jp.
Public release date: 8-Aug-2010 [ Print | E-mail | Share ] [ Close Window ]
Contact: Tom Vasich tmvasich@uci.edu 949-824-6455 University of California - Irvine