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Stem cell cure for strokes


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#1 duke_Qa

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Posted 01 September 2011 - 10:46 AM

One of my least-favorite things to do would be to have a stroke, so I find it joyous that they have had success in experimenting with injecting stem cells into a damaged brain.

The world's first clinical trial of brain stem cells to treat strokes is set to move to its next phase. An independent assessment of the first three patients to have had stem cells injected into their brain at Glasgow's Southern General Hospital has concluded it has had no adverse effect.

The assessment paves the way for the therapy to be tested on more patients to find a new treatment for stroke.

The hope is that the stem cells will help to repair damaged brain tissue.

The trial is being led by Prof Keith Muir of Glasgow University. He told BBC News that he was pleased with the results so far.

"We need to be assured of safety before we can progress to trying to test the effects of this therapy. Because this is the first time this type of cell therapy has been used in humans, it's vitally important that we determine that it's safe to proceed - so at the present time we have the clearance to proceed to the next higher dose of cells."


But the main reason I wanted to start a thread on this was because I now wanted to bring up the thought of what might happen if you used stem cells on a normal brain? Most likely it would probably just go inert, since the brain is up to date and all that, but what if injecting stem-cells into an old brain causes a massive regrowth of new and eager cells? boom, instant brain-upgrade. Now that would be something I'd be on top on once i start getting old and rusty in the head around 50-60. :grin:

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#2 Pasidon

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Posted 01 September 2011 - 06:28 PM

Great topic. Stem cells are a vast area in biology, and I love the fact that dead baby matter is being used to expand our modern scientific techniques. But on the subject of brain matter regeneration, it is quite interesting but there is an area of concern. When an area of the brain is destroyed, the cognitive and conscious functions residing in that area are destroyed pertinently. When you regrow that partial ruin, I'm concerned it would actually cause more damage than repair. I've read articles that state if a mammal mind is partially wiped and a stable area of the mind tries to perform an action that is a joint operation with the dead or inert mind, that alone would cause a traumatic neurological event. Like a computer program that trusts a line of code to perform an action, but the program crashes because it can't find the code. I trust the keen professionals of stem cell research to have all the variables in mind, but I'm just very curious how they would avoid inert cognition.

#3 duke_Qa

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Posted 01 September 2011 - 07:21 PM

Well they are developing new tech that allows them to create stem-cells from normal skin-cells, less dead babies. So I suspect that within 5-10 years stem-cells is something you can create by dropping a piece of your skin into a bag filled with goo.
We've mentioned in previous threads the stem-cell skin spray for miraculous healing of severe burns. And we have 3d-printers that print organs, which when stem-cell production becomes stable will give us free* organs. Personally I think the future is looking bright, although I fear most of this tech is going to be for the rich and famous to begin with.

I'm no brain surgeon so I can't say whats the best for the brain. I think they must have a good reason to regrow the brain in such a manner though, probably some highways that can't be re-routed through neuro-plasticity.


*(yeah right)

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#4 Pasidon

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Posted 01 September 2011 - 08:24 PM

Well like I said, I trust stem cell researchers enough to not debate their own science. I'd probably loose at that game anyway...

But about the wealth situation... at the moment you would probably have to be rich just to get a new skin splotch. That's just how it was when fast food came out... true story. But the more resources and progress we make in this, it would be more accessible. But it would be a faster progress if more people surrendered their unwanted dead baby flesh more often.




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