Review of stem cell usage in treatment of neurological diseases

The stem cell possesses two distinct traits: self-renewal and differentiation capacity. The stem cell population is comprised of two main cell types: embryonic stem cells and adult stem cells. Researches on the stem cells provoked ways to utilize their potential for therapeutic treatments of multiple neurological disorders. There are three different approaches in neural repair with the usage of stem cells: cell replacements, neuroprotection and gene delivery which are highly developed in treating neurological disorders such as Parkinson and multiple sclerosis but these approaches have their own problems. In comparison with embryonic stem cells, adult stem cells have more application in neural repair, because the usage of embryonic stem cells raises ethical issues, and will involve allograft transplantation and are of much risk for tumor formation. Taking all of this into account, utilizing adult stem cells are in priority. Furthermore, injection of molecules such as bFGF and EGF leads to induction of neurogenesis that can be helpful in neural repair.