Transplantation Techniques and the Survival of Adrenal Medulla Autografts in the Primate Brain

Development of effective therapeutic approaches to central nervous system disorders has been constrained by the limited potential of the brain to repair itself. Thus, the possibility that dysfunctional systems in the human brain might be repaired by replacement with grafted tissue has encouraged a number of experimental approaches and strategies. Based on the finding that Parkinson's disease most consistently involves pathologic changes in the substantia nigra, the main source of dopaminergic innervation to the ~triaturn,~' a rat rotational models-" involving this system has been used to investigate the possibility of using dopamine-containing grafts in an experimental therapeutic approach to this disorder. Indeed, it has been demonstrated that either fetal substantia nigra or adrenal medulla tissue, which are biological sources of dopamine, transplanted into the rat brain can reduce rotational behavior caused by experimental deprivation of dopaminergic inner~ation.~*'~'~ Moreover, it has been shown that fetal substantia nigra can reverse experimentally induced abnormalities of postsynaptic dopaminergic binding sites. Is In this paper we discuss our extension of investigations in the rat to a preliminary study in the nonhuman primate.