For the first time, researchers have found evidence that Parkinson's disease might spread to healthy nerve cells implanted into a patient's brain.
In postmortem studies, researchers found that a small minority of implanted cells in three patients had acquired traits associated with the disease. But for five other transplant recipients, the implanted neurons appeared healthy and functioning at the time of death, up to 16 years after surgery.
The finding could have implications for the use of stem cells to treat Parkinson's. These proposed therapies would implant healthy nerve cells into a patient's brain to replace cells damaged by the disease and partially relieve ...