Research Paper|Volume 12, Issue 16|pp 16062—16071

Synergistic effect of electric stimulation and mesenchymal stem cells against Parkinson's disease

Chunhui Yang¹^,*, Yiqing Qiu¹^,*, Yuan Qing¹, Jinyu Xu¹, Wei Dai¹, Xiaowu Hu¹, Xi Wu¹

¹Department of Neurosurgery, Changhai Hospital, The Second Military Medical University, Shanghai 2000433, China

* Equal contribution

Received: February 12, 2020Accepted: May 1, 2020Published: August 24, 2020

Copyright © 2020 Yang et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY 3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

Abstract

Electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) has known beneficial effects on the core motor symptoms of Parkinson's disease (PD), likely through induction of dopamine release and sensitivity of dopamine receptors. Mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) can salvage loss of dopamine in PD through their differentiation into dopaminergic neurons. However, it is not known if combined ECT and MSC transplantation may have a synergistic effect against PD. Here, we showed that ECT significantly increased the differentiation of the transplanted MSCs into dopaminergic neurons in a 1-methyl-4-phenyl-1,2,3,6-tetrahydropyridine (MPTP)-induced mouse model of PD. On the other hand, transplantation of MSCs significantly increased dopamine levels after ECT. Co-application of ECT and MSC transplantation generated a synergistic effect through increases in dopamine and decreases in pro-inflammatory cytokines, resulting in significantly attenuated defect in stepping test and rotational behavior in MPTP-mice. Together, our data suggest that combined ECT and MSC transplantation can be a valuable treatment of PD.