(Press-News.org) PHILADELPHIA — Stem cell therapy may restore cognition in patients with brain cancer who experience functional learning and memory loss often associated with radiation treatment, according to a laboratory study published in Cancer Research, a journal of the American Association for Cancer Research.
Charles Limoli, Ph.D., a professor in the department of radiation oncology at the University of California, Irvine, said radiation therapy is the standard of care for most brain cancers, but the side effects can be devastating.
"In almost every instance, people experience severe cognitive impairment that is progressive, debilitating and adversely impacts quality of life," he said. "Pediatric cancer patients can experience a drop of up to three IQ points per year."
In the current study, Limoli and colleagues subjected rats to cranial irradiation and followed up two days later with human neural stem cell transplants. A significant proportion of these cells survived and turned into brain cells found at one- and four-month evaluations. Cognitive function significantly improved compared with control rats.
Limoli said the findings of this study were significant, and may help pave the way for a human safety trial to be conducted within a few years if appropriate funding can be secured. Neural stem cells like those used in this study do not present the same ethical questions as embryonic stem cells.
###
Follow the AACR on Twitter: @aacr #aacr
Follow the AACR on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/aacr.org
The mission of the American Association for Cancer Research is to prevent and cure cancer. Founded in 1907, the AACR is the world's oldest and largest professional organization dedicated to advancing cancer research. The membership includes 33,000 basic, translational and clinical researchers; health care professionals; and cancer survivors and advocates in the United States and more than 90 other countries. The AACR marshals the full spectrum of expertise from the cancer community to accelerate progress in the prevention, diagnosis and treatment of cancer through high-quality scientific and educational programs. It funds innovative, meritorious research grants, research fellowships and career development awards. The AACR Annual Meeting attracts more than 18,000 participants who share the latest discoveries and developments in the field. Special conferences throughout the year present novel data across a wide variety of topics in cancer research, treatment and patient care. Including Cancer Discovery, the AACR publishes seven major peer-reviewed journals: Cancer Research; Clinical Cancer Research; Molecular Cancer Therapeutics; Molecular Cancer Research; Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers & Prevention; and Cancer Prevention Research. AACR journals represented 20 percent of the market share of total citations in 2009. The AACR also publishes CR, a magazine for cancer survivors and their families, patient advocates, physicians and scientists.
Stem cell treatment may restore cognitive function in patients with brain cancer
2011-07-14
ELSE PRESS RELEASES FROM THIS DATE:
Short-term hormone therapy plus radiation therapy increases survival for men with early-stage prostate cancer
2011-07-14
Philadelphia — Short-term hormone therapy (androgen deprivation therapy: ADT) given in combination with radiation therapy for men with early-stage prostate cancer increases their chance of living longer and not dying from the disease, compared with that of those who receive the same radiation therapy alone, according to a Radiation Therapy Oncology Group (RTOG) study published in the July 14 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine. This largest randomized trial of its kind enrolled nearly 2,000 men at low and intermediate risk of prostate cancer progression and followed ...
A closer look at the placebo effect
2011-07-14
BOSTON – Placebos are "dummy pills" often used in research trials to test new drug therapies and the "placebo effect" is the benefit patients receive from a treatment that has no active ingredients. Many claim that the placebo effect is a critical component of clinical practice.
But whether or not placebos can actually influence objective measures of disease has been unclear. Now a study of asthma patients examining the impact of two different placebo treatments versus standard medical treatment with an albuterol bronchodilator has reached two important conclusions: while ...
Neural mechanisms of object recognition
2011-07-14
A study examining the brain of a person with object agnosia, a defect in the inability to recognize objects, is providing a unique window into the sophisticated brain mechanisms critical for object recognition. The research, published by Cell Press in the July 14 issue of the journal Neuron, describes the functional neuroanatomy of object agnosia and suggests that damage to the part of the brain critical for object recognition can have a widespread impact on remote parts of the cortex.
Object agnosia is caused by an injury to the brain that does not include damage to ...
Modulation of inhibitory output is key function of antiobesity hormone
2011-07-14
Scientists have known for some time that the hormone leptin acts in the brain to prevent obesity, but the specific underlying neurocircuitry has remained a mystery. Now, new research published by Cell Press in the July 14 issue of the journal Neuron reveals neurobiological mechanisms that may underlie the antiobesity effects of leptin.
"Leptin is a hormone that is secreted by fat cells and acts at its receptor in the brain to decrease food intake and promote energy expenditure," explains senior study author Dr. Bradford B. Lowell from Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center ...
Researchers demystify a fountain of youth in the adult brain
2011-07-14
DURHAM, NC -- Duke University Medical Center researchers have found that a "fountain of youth" that sustains the production of new neurons in the brains of rodents is also believed to be present in the human brain. The existence of a vital support system of cells around stem cells in the brain explains why stem cells by themselves can't generate neurons in a lab dish, a major roadblock in using these stem cells for injury repair.
"We believe these findings will have important implications for human therapy," said Chay Kuo, M.D., Ph.D., George Brumley Jr. assistant professor ...
Gene migration helps predict movement of disease
2011-07-14
Until recently, migration patterns, such as those adopted by birds all across the Amazonian rainforest, have not been thought to play an important role in the spreading of beneficial genes through a population.
Researchers have now, for the first time, been able to predict the chance of a gene spreading when given any migration pattern, potentially providing an insight into the migration patterns of animals throughout history.
Even more impressively, the concepts from these predictions can be applied to tracking the route of cancer through the body, and viruses or ...
What activates a supermassive black hole?
2011-07-14
At the heart of most, if not all, large galaxies lurks a supermassive black hole with a mass millions, or sometimes billions, times greater than that of the Sun. In many galaxies, including our own Milky Way, the central black hole is quiet. But in some galaxies, particularly early on in the history of the Universe [1], the central monster feasts on material that gives off intense radiation as it falls into the black hole.
One unsolved mystery is where the material comes from to activate a sleeping black hole and trigger violent outbursts at a galaxy's centre, so that ...
New elegant technique used for genomic archaeology
2011-07-14
Researchers have probed deeper into human evolution by developing an elegant new technique to analyse whole genomes from different populations. One key finding from the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute's study is that African and non-African populations continued to exchange genetic material well after migration out-of-Africa 60,000 years ago. This shows that interbreeding between these groups continued long after the original exodus.
For the first time genomic archaeologists are able to infer population size and history
using single genomes, a technique that makes fewer ...
Taking out a cancer's co-dependency
2011-07-14
A cancer cell may seem out of control, growing wildly and breaking all the rules of orderly cell life and death. But amid the seeming chaos there is a balance between a cancer cell's revved-up metabolism and skyrocketing levels of cellular stress. Just as a cancer cell depends on a hyperactive metabolism to fuel its rapid growth, it also depends on anti-oxidative enzymes to quench potentially toxic reactive oxygen species (ROS) generated by such high metabolic demand.
Scientists at the Broad Institute and Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) have discovered a novel compound ...
Case Western Reserve restores breathing after spinal cord injury in rodent model
2011-07-14
Contact: Christina DeAngelis
christina.deangelis@case.edu
216-368-3635
Kevin Mayhood
kevin.mayhood@case.edu
216-368-5004
Case Western Reserve University
Case Western Reserve restores breathing after spinal cord injury in rodent model
Study published in the online issue of Nature on July 14
CLEVELAND – July 13, 2011 –Researchers at Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine bridged a spinal cord injury and biologically regenerated lost nerve connections to the diaphragm, restoring breathing in an adult rodent model of spinal cord injury. The work, which ...