Alzheimer's Disease
Parkinson's Disease
Dementia

In an article by Cai et al., the authors explore the pathways which MSC exosomes might be used for Alzheimer’s Disease (AD) by “promoting functional recover, neurovascular plasticity, and repairing injured tissue in neurodegenerative disorders”. Cai et al. also includes Figure 1, below, with the "emerging role of beta-amyloid peptide pathology". While AD accounts for 60-80% of the total dementia population, “almost all phase III clinical trials focused on the amyloid hypothesis have ended in failure”, according to Guo et al., who say that MSC-Exosomes have “unparalleled advantages over cell-based therapy, which are considering to be a promising alternative in the therapy of AD.”

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Parkinson’s Disease (PD) treatment modalities currently can only improve symptoms and are unable to protect dopaminergic neurons; Chen et al. investigated “PD treatment potential for human umbilical cord MSC exosomes to relieve apomorphine-induced asymmetric rotation, reduced substantia nigra dopaminergic neuron loss and apoptosis, and upregulated the level of dopamine in the striatum after crossing the blood brain barrier.” Heris et al. suggest that MSC-derived exosomes are “responsible for a significant portion” of the effects of “stem cells repair[ing] neuronal injury…”.