Researchers at NIMHANS have reported encouraging results from a pre-clinical study in which a non-invasive, intranasally delivered therapy improved motor and biological markers associated with Parkinson’s disease in rats.
The disease is characterised by the gradual loss of dopamine-producing neurons in a midbrain structure called the substantia nigra, leading to tremors, rigidity and slowing of movement. Existing treatments largely address symptoms and do not arrest progression.
Funded by the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) and the Department of Science and Technology, the study has been published in Stem Cell Research and Therapy. It was led by Indrani Datta, professor at the Department of Biophysics at NIMHANS, along with doctoral researchers Kallolika Mondal and Rituparna Ghanty, in collaboration with the Department of Neuropathology.
“This is not just a proposed hope for Parkinson’s patients, we have successfully demonstrated in a pre-clinical rat model that this strategy works,” Dr. Datta told The Hindu. “What makes this particularly exciting is that we have shown, for the first time, that these exosomes can trigger the brain to generate new dopaminergic neurons in the midbrain structure, the very region that degenerates in the disease,” Dr. Datta said.
