An Overview of Stem Cell Therapies for Parkinson’s Disease

Parkinson’s disease (PD) is referred to as a neurodegenerative disease which is a disease that targets specific brain regions and is characterized by neuronal death. PD is believed to be caused by the loss of nerve cells in the substantia nigra (SN), a dopamine releasing area (Dickson, 2012). Current treatments are directed at alleviating pain symptoms and slowing down the progression of disease, however, no cure currently exists. Recent advances in stem cell therapies raise new possibilities to treat neurodegenerative diseases. Stem cells have the ability to differentiate into neural cells, and thus, could potentially be used to restore neurogenesis and neuroplasticity (Lunn et al., 2011). There exist several cell types that can be applied in therapy including embryonic stem cells (ESCs), neural stem cells (NSCs), induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs), and mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs). PD which has localized neural degeneration to the SN may serve as a better model for stem cell therapy and displays greater success when compared to other neurodegenerative diseases that spread to several brain regions (Vasic et al., 2019). This review aims to discuss the several approaches used in stem cell therapy as well as the current challenges and shortcomings of this cell-based therapy.