JOURNAL OF CLINICAL AND BIOMEDICAL SCIENCES

Abstract

Temporal lobe epilepsy (TLE) is the most common and difficult to treat form of epilepsy. Nearly, 30% of TLE patients are refractory to anti-epileptic drug treatments. Thus, identifying alternative treatment strategies for drug resistant TLE is warranted. Cell therapy is evolving as one of the promising treatment option for drug-resistant TLE. However, the functional efficacy of engrafted cells is still a matter of debate while the possibilities of teratoma formation and immune rejection are the major impediments which preclude the application of cell therapy for treating TLE. Nonetheless, the recent consensus is that host tissue regeneration may be partly attributed to growth factors released by the transplanted cells. In this concise review we describe the neurobiological features of TLE and summaries experimental data which provide proof of principle in support of the possibilities of treating TLE with stem cell based approaches.

Key words: Epilepsy, Hippocampus, Stem cells, Neurodegeneration, Neuroprotection