Retina cells may ease Parkinson’s
From Times wire reports
People with Parkinson’s disease showed marked improvement after surgeons implanted in their brains chemical-producing cells taken from the eye of a dead donor, researchers have reported.
Cells from the inner, or pigment, layer of the eye’s retina make levodopa, which Parkinson’s patients commonly take in pill form to replace lost production of the neurotransmitter dopamine.
The retina cells were cultivated and implanted in the brains of six patients with advanced Parkinson’s, researcher Natividad Stover of the University of Alabama said.
One year later, the patients scored 48% higher on tests of movement and coordination, and the improvement was sustained after two years, Stover wrote in the December issue of Archives of Neurology.
