Parkinson's disease (PD) is a neurodegenerative disease caused by the loss of dopaminergic neurons (DNs). Currently, there is no treatment that can cure PD. Deep brain stimulation has been used to treat PD due to its good effectiveness, but there are safety issues. Therefore, noninvasive electrical stimulation (NES) may be an effective and safe strategy for the treatment of PD. Here, we performed NES treatment and NES combined with human adipose-derived stem cells-induced DN transplantation (NES-DN) on the PD monkey model to explore the therapeutic effect of NES on PD. The results show that NES or NES-DN can increase dopamine levels, improve mitochondrial dysfunction, reduce neuroinflammation, enhance synaptic function, and protect TH neurons, thereby improving the movement disorders of PD. Moreover, NES/NES-DN may exert immunomodulatory effects by regulating serpin family A member 3 in PD monkeys. Our results support the scientific basis and preclinical evidence for NES in the treatment of PD. Not only does NES alone improve PD, but NES combined with stem cell therapy can greatly enhance the therapeutic effect of PD.
Huang et al. (Wed,) studied this question.