Bone marrow transplantation for research and regenerative therapies in the central nervous system

Bone marrow stem cells are probably the best known stem cell type and have been employed for more than 50 years, especially in pathologies related to the hematopoietic and immune systems. However, their potential for therapeutic application is much broader (because these cells can differentiate into hepatocytes, myocytes, cardiomyocytes, pneumocytes or neural cells, among others), and they can also presumably be employed to palliate neural diseases. Current research addressing the integration of bone marrow -derived cells in the neural circuits of the central nervous system together with their features and applications are hotspots in current Neurobiology. Nevertheless, as in other leading research lines the efficacy and possibilities of their therapeutic application depend on the technical procedures employed, which are still far from being standardized. In this chapter we shall explain one of these procedures in depth, namely the transplantation of whole bone marrow from harvested bone marrow stem cells for subsequent integration into the encephalon.