Combination of Stem Cells with Chinese Herbs for Secondary Depression in Neurodegenerative Diseases Based on Traditional Chinese Medicine Theories

Abstract

Depression is a common secondary symptom in neurodegenerative diseases (NDs) caused by the loss of neurons and glial cells. Recent research focuses on stem cell therapy to replace dead nerve cells, but the low efficiency of stem cell differentiation and short survival time are obstacles limiting the therapy's effectiveness. Clinically, patients with different diseases cannot obtain the same effect by using the same cell therapy. However, traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) often uses syndrome differentiation to determine the treatment plan for NDs. Based on TCM syndrome differentiation and treatment, this article summarizes the advantages of Chinese herbal medicine combined with stem cell therapy, mainly for the effects of various herbs on diseases and stem cells, including prolonging the survival time of stem cells, resisting inflammation, and antidepressant-like effects. In particular, it analyzes the unique pathways of the influence of drugs and acupuncture on different therapies, seeking to clarify the scientific TCM system. This review mainly elaborates on the treatment of secondary depression in TCM and the advantages of a herbal combined stem cell therapy in various methods. We believe it can provide a new clinical concept for secondary depression to obtain good clinical effects and reduce the risks borne by patients.

Figure 1

Similarities and differences of pathway enrichment among different treatments. The black dot represents that the treatment method affects the pathway, the right side is the entry of the drug-influenced pathway, and the name of the treatment method is on the top.

Figure 2

Peculiarities of 5 kinds of treatment methods of TCM enrichment pathways. Different colors represent the drug enriched pathway of different treatment methods, and the intersection part is two or more common pathways.