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Bone Marrow Can Grow New Brain Cells

Posted by timothy on from the where's-my-marrow-spoon? dept.

ActMatrix writes: "Scientists at Stanford and the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke have demonstrated that stem cells in bone marrow can produce neurons that replace dead brain cells, similar to the way our bodies constantly replenish skin cells. What isn't certain yet is whether these new brain cells make functional neural connections. If they do, it's possible that doctors will some day use marrow transplants to treat brain disorders. What's especially cool is how they discovered this. In one case, mice whose natural bone marrow was killed by radiation were injected in the tail with marrow containing a phosphorescent protein. When the mice were killed later, parts of their brains glowed in the dark. =) Article with some more details from CNN here."

9 of 128 comments (clear)

  1. Re:what wonderful news for potheads! by ch-chuck · · Score: 3

    Read the FAQ.

    --
    try { do() || do_not(); } catch (JediException err) { yoda(err); }
  2. Re:You make me ill... by debrain · · Score: 3
    This is somewhat of an interesting topic. Foremost, there is nihilism - the idea that everything is meaningless, and that any fiction "virtue in faith":Christianity or "virtue in reason":Socrates overlaying that meaninglessness is an abstraction that takes us away from reality.

    Note: Descarte believed in the other extreme - absolute reason, "I think, therefore I am", and thus eveything is at my beck and call for exploitation. Environmentalists love Descarte.

    And although it is true that this nihilism - belief in underlying meaningless - is often associated with Nietzsche (and in particular his sister) and the rise of the Nazi's - the Germans carried Nietzsche's text like Canadians do the Bible - it is a far cry from the only use of the idea of nihilism. In fact, the most popular religion in the world - Buddhism - necessitates the acceptance of nihilism prior to nirvana. So the Nazi argument is quite moot, and there is at least one valid, popular, and "cheerful" interpretation to this nihilism without resorting to Nazi arguments.

    Not only that, but perhaps the only undeniable interpretations of existence account for nihilism. Unfortunately there is a fairly open interpretation to what I've written, but there are quite a few books on this (particularly regarding Nietzsche, Buddhism, and combinations of those two). Just thought this might interest you.

    B

  3. what wonderful news for potheads! by mr_gerbik · · Score: 3

    can I smoke bone marrow to counteract killing my brain cells?

    -gerbik

  4. Major use - regeneration of nerves by abhinavnath · · Score: 3

    I think that the major use of grafting bone marrow cells would be in cases of spinal cord damage - even if a small section of nerve tissue was damaged beyond repair, a bone marrow graft could be induced to replace it. This avoids the loss-of-data issues theoretically possible with grafting into the brain. Networking is also a lot simpler in the spinal cord an the brain. If bone marrow cells can replace brain cells, they also ought to be able to replace spinal cord cells (both being part of the CNS, with lots of shared cellular architecture).

    OTOH, reflexes controlled by that section of cord would be useless - a small price to pay, IMHO.

    --
    My other sig is also a .Porsche
  5. Re:A counterblast against science's dehumanisation by Delirium+Tremens · · Score: 3
    Thanks man! This is part of what I was trying to say.

    So you agree with this *u****i*?
    Come on KtB, you were complaining about nazism two posts ago, and now you agree with ideas like survival of the fittest... If that sentence is not pure nazism, then we didn't read the same history book!

    And by the way there is a fair number of physically challenged people living on medicine to sustain their life who have contributed considerably to technology, art or entreat associations. Should you have killed them / let them die because they were not fitted enough according to your rules? What about their fantatic brain power, love or creativity?

    We don't live anymore in caves and don't go hunting with our bare hands to get food. We don't need to be able to outrun a Grizzly or fight without medicine all virii and infections we come across.

    If you believe that survival of the fittest still appies to humankind, don't go to the pharmacy or call the doctor next time you're sick!

  6. Re:You Nazi! by Shoeboy · · Score: 4

    Wow, you just ended the arguement by calling me a nazi.
    By the time honored standards established in usenet, I proclaim myself the victor.
    Try articulating well reasoned arguements rather than ad hominem attacks if you want to convince.
    --Shoeboy

  7. Get it to the patent office, quick! by electricmonk · · Score: 4

    Maybe we can use this wonderful advance in medicine to help out the poor, unfortunate people in the US Patent Office, who seem to be in urgent need of this procedure...

    --
    Friends don't let friends use multiple inheritance.
  8. Missing the point by update() · · Score: 4
    I haven't seen the Science paper yet, but I suspect that both the CNN article and people here are missing the main point. The key line is "The researchers said the finding suggests that converting bone marrow cells into brain neurons may be part of a previously unknown natural healing action the body uses to replace failed brain cells. "

    It's not so much that we'll be injecting bone marrow into our brains before finals but that there may be an unknown mechanism for generating neurons. If it can be studied and understood (maybe using stem cells as a model) that raises the possibility of drugs that can accelerate that mechanism to speed recovery from brain damage.

  9. Glow in the dark brain != Neural Regeneration by dondelelcaro · · Score: 5
    Science in CNN is always interesting. Time to go to the primary source to figure out what is actually going on.
    To examine whether bone marrow-derived cells could give rise to cells in the brain, adult marrow was harvested from transgenic mice (8 to 10 weeks of age) that ubiquitously expressed enhanced green fluorescent protein (GFP) (13). GFP-expressing (GFP+) bone marrow was administered by tail vein injection (6 × 106 nucleated cells per recipient) into lethally irradiated, isogenic adult (8- to 10-week-old) recipients (14). Brains harvested several months after the transplant (post-transplant) and examined by light microscopy revealed the presence of GFP+ cells throughout the CNS, including the olfactory bulb, hippocampus, cortical areas, and cerebellum. No cells expressed detectable GFP in five age-matched bone marrow recipients (controls) transplanted with marrow that was not genetically engineered to express GFP. Thus, bone marrow-derived GFP+ cells were clearly present in the brain.
    Unfortuanatly, the mere precense of green florescing protein doesn't conclusively demonstrate that the bone-marrow cells have become neurons. I submit that if you were to look at cells throughout the body, you would have found differentiated stem cells glowing throughout the entire mouse. Nicely however, this data isn't shown, or even elluded to.

    However, what does begin to demonstrate that the bone-marrow cells actually became neuronal cells is the staining process, where you stain for neuronal proteins. Of course, B cells have a nasty habit of trapping free neuronal proteins, so you would have to control for that, but that can be overcome. Course, one would really like to see a protein affinity study to conclusively demonstrate that the cells are actually neuronal, but I'm not a neurologist, so I won't digress.

    Merzey's work deals more elegantly with the problem by not dealing with GPF at all and instead heading straight for genetic material, by using male stem cells in a female mice. (XY instead of XX, trivial to find Y using staining microscopy) This cleans up most of the nastyness of the GPF.

    In addition Merzy deals with the differentiation of neuronal cells much more effectively, convicing me at least that these stem cells actually became neuronal cells, rather than just leaking out into the brain accidental like. Of course, the real trick now is to figure out what got the cells to become neurons.

    I'm going to guess that it only works in stem cells, and occurs because of the influence of neuronal proteins on neurons affects the differentiation of cells that can actually change fate into something that suits their environment. (Ie, have a non-locked (non-genetic) path determination). Probably just the proteins that turned the neurons into neurons in the first place continue to act on cells that through some strange occurence end up in the range of those proteins

    Oh yeah... for those of you who are actually interested, here is the links to the articles. Turning Blood into Brain: Cells Bearing Neuronal Antigens Generated in Vivo from Bone Marrow and From Marrow to Brain: Expression of Neuronal Phenotypes in Adult Mice.
    Science 290:1779 and Science 290:1775 respectively.

    Don Armstrong -".naidnE elttiL etah I"
    --
    http://www.donarmstrong.com