Rm. Ridley et al., BEHAVIORAL-ASSESSMENT OF THE ABILITY OF INTRACEREBRAL EMBRYONIC NEURAL TISSUE GRAFTS TO AMELIORATE THE EFFECTS OF BRAIN-DAMAGE IN MARMOSETS, Molecular neurobiology, 9(1-3), 1994, pp. 207-223
The transplantation of neuronal tissue into the brains of patients wit
h Parkinson's disease is already being assessed as an experimental tre
atment for the symptoms of this disease, and the possibility of using
similar graft tissue to ameliorate the symptoms of other neurodegenera
tive diseases is being considered. In this context, a small number of
transplant experiments have been carried out in monkeys with lesions o
f the central dopamine and cholinergic systems. These experiments make
it possible to determine the optimum methods of transplantation in an
animal whose brain is structurally more closely related to the human
than that of the rat and to assess the behavioral consequences of tran
splantation on symptoms that either resemble very closely the symptoms
seen in patients, or are of a complex cognitive nature and are theref
ore more difficult to measure in the rat. It is intended that these ex
periments will contribute to the development of better treatments for
the neurodegenerative diseases, either by the use of transplantation a
s a clinical treatment, or by contributing to a better understanding o
f the mechanisms that normally maintain neuronal function and that fai
l in these diseases.