Affiliations: [a]
Department of Psychiatry, First Hospital/First Clinical Medical College of Shanxi Medical University, Taiyuan, China
| [b] Shanxi Key Laboratory of Artificial Intelligence Assisted Diagnosis and Treatment for Mental Disorder, First Hospital of Shanxi Medical University, Taiyuan, China
| [c]
Department of Psychiatry, Taiyuan Central Hospital of Shanxi Medical University, Taiyuan, Shanxi Province, China
| [d]
Department of Mental Health, Shanxi Medical University, Taiyuan, China
Correspondence:
[*]
Correspondence to: Sha Liu, Department of Psychiatry, First Hospital/First Clinical Medical College of Shanxi Medical University, Taiyuan, China. Tel./Fax: + 86 15803400167; E-mail: liusha1984114@163.com and Yong Xu, Department of Psychiatry, Taiyuan Central Hospital of Shanxi Medical University, Taiyuan, Shanxi Province, China. Tel./Fax: + 86 18234016125; E-mail: xuyongsmu@vip.163.com.
Abstract: As the size of the population aged 65 and older continues to grow, the incidence and mortality rates of Alzheimer’s disease (AD) are increasing annually. Unfortunately, current treatments only treat symptoms temporarily and do not alter the patients’ life expectancy or course of AD. Mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) have shown a certain therapeutic potential in neurodegenerative diseases including AD due to their neuroinflammatory regulation and neuroprotective effects. However, the low survival and homing rates of MSCs after transplantation seriously affect their therapeutic effectiveness. Therefore, appropriate in vitro preconditioning is necessary to increase the survival and homing rates of MSCs to improve their effectiveness in treating AD. Here we summarize the therapeutic mechanisms of MSCs in AD and the chemical reagents used for the pretreatment of MSCs.
