GERIATRICS Healthy Ageing

The Translational Regenerative Medicine Start-Up

Stroke is a heavily undertreated disease demanding a vigorous search for new therapies. Attractive therapeutic strategies to enhance post stroke recovery include cellular therapies. Since stroke afflicts mostly the elderly, it is highly desirable to test the efficacy of cell therapies in the microenvironment of aged brains that is generally refractory to regeneration. The ultimate goal of stroke treatment is restoration of neurological function. Since pre-stroke brain integrity and neurological function is not fully restored following a stroke event, recent developments focused on the survival and remodeling of previously ischemic brain tissue, where neurons, glial cells, microvascular cells and endogenous neural precursor cells represent promising therapeutic targets. Both bone marrow derived mononuclear cells and neural precursor cell therapy for stroke suggest that the aged rat brain is not refractory to cell survival and remodeling, and that it also supports plasticity. Open questions remain if transplanted cells have any beneficial effect on behavioural recovery.

 

 

Figure 1. Neural stem therapy of cortical infarcts. (A) Administration of NPCs isolated from the SVZ are delivered at 72 h after reperfusion via the tail vein; (B) Documentation of the cortical infarct by MRI; (C) Visualization of transplanted cells in the periinfarct. NPCs (arrowheads) at the ischaemic boundary zone were often detected in close proximity to phagocytes (red). Nuclei are labelled with DAPI (blue) (modified after Bacigaluppi et al., 2009); (D) Behavioural assessment of cell treatment by the grip test.