ECS, ECT and Parkinson's Disease
Out on Pubmed, from investigators in Shanghai, China is this animal study: Synergistic effect of electric stimulation and mesenchymal stem cells against Parkinson's disease. Yang C, Qiu Y, Qing Y, Xu J, Dai W, Hu X, Wu X. Aging (Albany NY). 2020 Aug 24;12. doi: 10.18632/aging.103477. Online ahead of print. PMID: 32836217 The abstract is copied below: Electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) has known beneficial effects on the core motor symptoms of Parkinson's disease (PD), likely through induction of dopamine release and sensitivity of dopamine receptors. Mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) can salvage loss of dopamine in PD through their differentiation into dopaminergic neurons. However, it is not known if combined ECT and MSC transplantation may have a synergistic effect against PD. Here, we showed that ECT significantly increased the differentiation of the transplanted MSCs into dopaminergic neurons in a 1-methyl-4-phenyl-1,2,3,6-tetrahydropyridine (MPTP)-induced mouse model of PD. On t