[Gene therapy in neurological diseases].

Gene therapy is a new therapeutic method which uses molecular biology techniques to modulate expression of genes involved in disease pathogenesis. Gene therapy has evolved rapidly in the last ten years. In that time several experimental models of metabolic and degenerative neurological disorders, brain tumours, stroke, epilepsy, motor neuron disease, multiple sclerosis and muscle dystrophy were treated with some positive results by gene therapy techniques. The first clinical trials are currently ongoing in certain metabolic diseases, brain tumours and limb girdle dystrophy. DNA vaccination is also used in clinical trials. It seems that gene therapy will become soon the alternative method of treatment of those neurological diseases where current methods of treatment are not effective.