Parkinson's and Huntington's diseases are progressive neurodegenerative dis
orders of the central nervous system for which symptomatic but not curative
therapies are available. Therapeutic strategies have been developed to try
and repair the brain in these conditions, including the use of grafts of f
oetal neural tissue. Here, we consider the merits of this approach and disc
uss the extent to which neural transplantation has successfully been transl
ated into clinical studies for these diseases.