Stem Cell Therapy of Epilepsy .
Epilepsy as one of the most common neurological disorders affects more than 50 million people worldwide with a higher prevalence rate in low-income countries. Excessive electrical discharges in neurons following neural cell damage or loss cause recurrent seizures. One of the most common and difficult to treat types of epilepsy is temporal lobe epilepsy (TLE) which results from hippocampal sclerosis. Nowadays, similar to other diseases, epilepsy also is a candidate for treatment with different types of stem cells.
Various stem cell types were used for treatment of epilepsy in basic and experimental researches.
Two Stem cell therapy has been shown efficacious in treating experimental models of neurological disorders, including Parkinson’s disease, and neuropsychiatric diseases, such as depression
Major roles of stem cell therapy in epilepsy are prophylaxis against chronic epilepsy and amelioration cognitive function after the occurrence of TLE.
Induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs)
Some epilepsies are caused because of a genetic mutation or change in neurons. For example, Dravet syndrome is a devastating form of childhood epilepsy caused by a mutation in a specific sodium channel.
Scientists have found a way to take stem cells from people with Dravet syndrome and program them to become any type of cell in the body. These new cell types are called pluripotent stem cells. These new cells can be made into neurons.
Although much more research needs to be done, stem cell therapy is an attractive and promising treatment for epilepsy.
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