Doctors at Yale School of Medicine have performed the first central nervous system transplant, taking nerve cells from the ankle of a woman with multiple sclerosis (MS) and transplanting them to her brain.

The transplantation is part of a phase I clinical trial testing whether cells found in the body's peripheral nerves can safely repair damaged cells in the brain and spinal cord that result in myelin disorders such as MS.

In MS, the immune system attacks the brain's nerve fibers and strips away myelin, the protective sheath around nerve fibers in the spinal cord and brain, making it difficult for the nerves to transmit messages.

Yale doctors have transplanted nerve cells from the ankle of a woman suffering from multiple sclerosis to her brain in an attempt to repair key nervous system cells.

The team plans to perform a biopsy on the 53-year-old woman in six months to determine whether the cells from her ankle have survived in the brain, and whether they have restored myelin to the damaged nerves in the spinal cord and brain, allowing normal function.

"The purpose of this experiment was to determine whether the procedure is safe and has enough promise to justify future research," said principal investigator Timothy Vollmer, M.D., associate professor of neurology at Yale School of Medicine.

The researchers said the procedure holds promise for the estimated 1.4 million people worldwide with MS, and also for patients affected by other demyelinating diseases such as the leukodystrophies, hereditary diseases that strike children in infancy.