Stem Cells Could Aid Alzheimer's Fight: Bone Marrow Injection has Helped Slow Degeneration in Mice Brains

Alzheimer patients may some day be able to use their own bone marrow stem cells to fight off nerve cell degeneration that results in dementia, suggests a report in the journal Neuron.

A Universite Laval research team, funded by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, is being lauded for its discovery of a natural defence mechanism for Alzheimer's disease.

Remi Quirion, scientific director of CIHR's Institute of Neurosciences, Mental Health and Addiction, said the research is based on an animal model of Alzheimer's, so it could take a few years before the findings are tested in humans.

In Alzheimer's, an abnormal structure develops in some brain regions, called senile plaque, he said. "It is kind of a blob of (amyloid) protein - a concentration of protein in various places of the brain and this disrupts connections between the various neurons and cells we have in the brain. And the area where there is a great quantity of this senile plaque is a very important area for learning and memory."

The research team studied the effects of the body's protective immune cells on the senile plaque.

Although the brain appears to be poorly equipped to combat amyloid plaques, a different case prevails for immune cells derived from bone marrow.

"If you inject the bone marrow stem cells into the brain, they will digest the plaque. So basically ... you may be able to improve the prognosis by slowing down the progression or even reverse Alzheimer's disease," he said.