Huntington's disease is an autosomal dominant, inherited disorder that
results in progressive degeneration of the basal ganglia (especially
the neostriatal caudate nucleus and putamen) and other forebrain struc
tures and is associated with a clinical profile of movement, cognitive
and psychiatric impairments for which there is at present no effectiv
e therapy(1). Neuropathological, neurochemical and behavioral features
of the disease can all be reproduced in experimental animals by local
injection of excitotoxic(2,3) or metabolic(4,5) toxins into the neost
riatum. All these features of the disease can be alleviated, at least
in rats, by transplantation of embryonic striatal tissue into the dege
nerated striatum(6-8), which was the basis for commencing the first cl
inical trials of striatal transplantation in Huntington's patients(9,1
0). However, although rat striatal xenografts may temporarily reduce a
pomorphine-induced dyskinesias in monkeys(11), there has been no demon
stration that allograft techniques that work well in rats translate ef
fectively to the much larger differentiated striatum of primates(12).
Here we demonstrate good survival, differentiation and integration of
striatal allografts in the primate neostriatum, and recovery in a test
of skilled motor performance. Long-term graft survival in primates in
dicates probable success for clinical transplants in Huntington's dise
ase; in addition, our data suggest that graft placement has a direct i
nfluence on the pattern and extent of functional recovery.