Parkinson's disease from a viewpoint of regenerative medicine

It has long been considered that central nervous system would not regenerate after injury, but this concept has recently been changing due to the development of neuroscience research. Cell grafting, gene transfer and neurotrophic factor administration into the brain and spinal cord are the examples of methods to perform protection and repair. These techniques are expected to be applied to certain neurological disorders such as Parkinson's disease, cerebral ischemia and spinal cord injury. Parkinson's disease is a progressive neurodegenerative disorder characterized by the loss of dopaminergic neurons in the nigrostriatal system. Fetal neurons, chromaffin cells, cell lines, certain genes, neural stem cells, ES cells and bone marrow cells have been investigated as donor cells and vectors to treat Parkinson's disease. This review will summarize the history, of neural transplantation in Parkinson's disease and features and prospects of each donor will be discussed.