Skip to main content
Fig. 1 | Molecular Neurodegeneration

Fig. 1

From: Combination therapy using GDNF and cell transplant in Parkinson’s disease

Fig. 1

Combination therapy of glial derived neurotrophic factor (GDNF) and cell transplant in substantia nigra (SN) and/or striatum may represent a potential therapeutic option for Parkinson’s disease (PD). (A) Moriarty et al. found that striatum and other targets that are normally innervated by endogenous mDA were densely and specifically innervated by the grafted DA neurons upon addition of GDNF, resulting in clinical improvement in a rat PD model. (B) Future clinical trials can potentially explore a combination of GDNF and cell transplantation in SN and/or striatum to evaluate if GDNF supports the survival and induces axonal branching of the striatal graft and if it induces more branching of the DA axons towards the site of GDNF for SN transplant. Green fibers denote efferent innervation of the striatum by the grafted DA neurons; red fibers denote afferent innervation of the grafted neurons by the host’s striatal neurons; blue fibers denote afferent innervation of the grafted neurons by the host’s cortex and other brain regions.

Back to article page