ABSTRACT
In the eyes of the lay public, undoubtedly the most exciting current information about the adrenal medulla involves the autologous transplantation of tissue from this organ into the brain as a treatment for Parkinson's disease. This chapter covers the experimental work with nonhumans and then the clinical trials, including the controversies surrounding them. Catecholamine-rich tissues such as adrenal chromaffin cells, sympathetic ganglia, central dopaminergic neuroblasts, and neuroblasts from the locus ceruleus all survived grafting into the anterior chamber of the eye of immunocompromised rats and mice. In an elegant series of experiments, a group from the University of Rochester investigated use of both the adrenal medulla and other sources of catecholamine-secreting tissue for transplantation. An interesting series of publications explored another purpose for transplantation of adrenal medulla tissue to the central nervous system. The rationale was that opioid peptides and catecholamines are known to induce analgesia when injected directly into the spinal cord.
