Science Questions

Can you repair the mind?

Can you repair the mind, like bi-polar or any mental illness for that matter through this technology? Jimi Hahn

Kat -   I think it should be possible.  There’s certainly some evidence that I think anti-depressant drugs can change the turnover of cells.  It would be interesting to see if Sian’s got any views on this.

Sian -   Yeah.  That’s certainly true that depression reduces the turnover of cells in the brain.  So certainly from that point of view, the regeneration might have a possibility and things like repairing the pathways that are changed in epilepsy, you could see that would be very amenable to this kind of stem cell regeneration.

September 2009