Potential of adult neural stem cells for cellular therapy

Cellular therapy is the replacement of unhealthy or damaged cells or tissues by new ones. Because neurodegenerative diseases, cerebral strokes, and traumatic injuries to the central nervous system (CNS) produce neurological deficits that result from neuronal loss, cell therapy is a prominent area of investigation for the treatment of neurological diseases and injuries. Neural progenitor and stem cells generate the main phenotyes of the nervous system, and offer a model of choice for cellular therapy in the CNS. With the confirmation that neurogenesis occurs in the adult brain, and the recent isolation and characterization in vitro of neural progenitor and stem cells from the adult CNS, new strategies are being devised and have the potential to treat a broad range of CNS diseases and injuries.