Thursday, April 23, 2015

Parkinson's disease and Olfactory Mucosa

This blog was created to inform people about Parkinson’s disease and a possible future cure for the disease. Parkinson’s disease is a progressive and chronic disease, which restricts body movements by causing disorders in the central nervous system. Disorders in the central nervous system cause deaths of the neurons, cells that produce dopamines in the brain and directly linked to physical movements. This deadly disease is one of the most common diseases that affects about 1 million people in North America.
Currently, there are several medications available and the most effective one is called Sinemet. However, this medication causes many side effects to the patients such as nausea and vomiting and it becomes ineffective over the time. There is no cure is available for Parkinson’s disease and since Parkinson’s disease is a progressive disease, the accessible treatments and medications can only slow down acceleration of the disease and it cannot be eradicated. Parkinson’s disease can be cured through stem cell therapies, using stem cells to replace dead neurons and produce dopamines in the brain. However, the present science and technologies are very limited and there is no accessible source for the therapy.

However, many scholars and scientists recently discovered a tissue located in the nasal cavity called olfactory mucosa, which could be a potential source for stem cells. According to numerous literature reviews and research papers, some researchers successfully extracted olfactory mucosa from human body and managed to differentiate the tissue into a neuron producing tissue by injecting it into several mice. The researches are still going on to prove olfactory mucosa as a stem cell source and if olfactory mucosa can be differentiated into human neuron cells, many people suffering from Parkinson’s disease can be free from physical restrictions. Furthermore, it can hasten the discoveries of cures for other chronic diseases too.

4 comments:

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  2. The title “Move to the next level” and “Parkinson’s disease and Olfactory Mucosa” are both very ambiguous. IMO, “Parkinson’s disease and Olfactory Mucosa” can be the big title of the whole blog, while “Move to the next level” can be the title of the article, plus it can changed into “Move to the next level in treatment”.
    The article contains several terms that are not very understandable for non-scientists readers. For example, “dopamines” and “stem cells”. The author should attach some external links that briefly describe these specific terms. It would make the article more understandable.

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  3. I really like how you are examining the use of self stem cells as a replacement for embryonic stem cell therapy. It is unfortunate that stem cell therapy is culturally looked down upon because of how it is harvested but I believe it is a very promising field that could lead to a miracle cure for most neurological diseases. I am also writing my blog on possible use of stem cell therapy for a nervous system disability and I was unaware that there are some self stem cells in the olfactory cavity. I am very interested in your blog and plan on reading your posts.

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  4. I think your blog title can be a bit more specific. It is hard for readers to first be attracted to such title since they don't know what to expect in the posts. I recently just learned about the cause of Parkinson Disease, but I also read a few articles talking about other potential causes of Parkinson Disease. It seems that the leading cause of Parkinson is still under debate. Would the stem cell treatment able to cure Parkinson regardless of the specific cause?

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