Stem Cells Therapy for Cerebral Palsy

What is cerebral palsy?

Cerebral palsy is an umbrella term for the effects of damage to a developing brain by various causes. It is connected with a range of symptoms, including muscle weakness and movement problems. The damage to the brain usually occurs early on in its development, either in the baby during pregnancy or during the period soon after birth. Symptoms may include difficulties in walking, balance and motor control, eating, swallowing, speech or coordination of eye movements. Some people affected by cerebral palsy also have some level of intellectual disability. No two people with cerebral palsy are affected in exactly the same way.

What are the causes of cerebral palsy?

Cerebral palsy may arise during pregnancy, but can also be caused by complications at birth, or following injury or illness after birth. It is often difficult to pinpoint exactly what has caused the damage to the brain because many different things can work together to create each person’s unique set of symptoms, including:
Changes in the genes inside the brain’s cells can affect how the brain develops
The brain can sometimes develop in an unusual shape or structure
Infections during pregnancy or physical injury can cause damage to the brain
Complications of premature birth
Critical illness at birth (known as neonatal encephalopathy), which sometimes causes a shortage of oxygen to the brain
Examples of cells found in the brain: Many different types of cells interact to carry signals around the brain and between the brain and body. Cerebral palsy is difficult to treat because it can involve damage to all of these types of cells and their connections.

Stem Cells Therapy for Cerebral Palsy


Cerebral palsy is a group of brain diseases which produce chronic motor disability in children. The causes are quite varied and range from abnormalities of brain development to birth-related injuries to postnatal brain injuries. Due to the increased survival of very premature infants, the incidence of cerebral palsy may be increasing. While premature infants and term infants who have suffered neonatal hypoxic-ischaemic (HI) injury represent only a minority of the total cerebral palsy population, this group demonstrates easily identifiable clinical findings, and much of their injury is to oligodendrocytes and the cerebral white matter. While the use of stem cell therapy is promising, there are no controlled trials in humans with cerebral palsy and only a few trials in patients with other neurologic disorders. However, studies in animals with experimentally induced strokes or traumatic injuries have indicated that benefit is possible. The potential to do these transplants via injection into the vasculature rather than directly into the brain increases the likelihood of timely human studies. As a result, variables appropriate to human experiments with intravascular injection of cells, such as cell type, timing of the transplant and effect on function, need to be systematically performed in animal models with HI injury, with the hope of rapidly translating these experiments to human trials.