{"doi":"10.1002/nep3.70023","title":"A holistic view on disease‐modifying aspects, comorbidities, and contemporary neuroprotective approaches","abstract":"Most conditions of the central nervous system (CNS) and the peripheral nervous system are not stand-alone disorders but are modulated and influenced by other pathobiological processes. For instance, the impact of frequent comorbidities such as hypertension1 or dyslipidemia2 as factors contributing to and aggravating CNS diseases has been much better understood in recent years. Another prominent disease-modifying factor is the gut microbiome which can exert both protective and detrimental effects on the nervous system in health and disease.3 An even better understanding of these factors will contribute to the development of individualized treatment approaches, a major research objective in the era of precision medicine.4 The current issue of Neuroprotection presents articles focusing on disease-modifying factors or novel treatment approaches for a broad spectrum of conditions. This provides a wide perspective but also novel insights into disease mechanisms and targeted treatment approaches. Priority has been given to articles reporting, reviewing or meta-analyzing clinical data as well as articles providing results of translationally relevant preclinical work. Stem cell-based therapies have been considered as a promising complementary therapeutic option to established treatment approaches for multiple neurological conditions—especially those for which only limited causal treatment options are available.5 Bou Najm and Alame review the therapeutic potential of stem cell-based therapies on a wide spectrum of neurological disorders with a major yet not exclusive focus on adult stem cells and stem cell-containing populations. While this is not a new topic in general, the authors specifically focus on clinical data obtained in pediatric patients. There is indeed a paucity of reviews providing such analyses, so the work by Najm and Alam provides a useful and new perspective. Although the pediatric studies reviewed are often early-stage investigations and provide only preliminary findings or sometimes lack a randomized and controlled design, the observations made seem to confirm the overall good safety profile of stem cell-based treatment that has been reported in previous studies enrolling adults. On the other hand, translational barriers that have been identified for stem cell-based therapies in adult neurological patients also seem to be present in pediatric patient populations. A particularly interesting feature of the review is the inclusion of conditions which are rarely approached with stem cell-based therapies such as epilepsy and autistic spectrum disorders. Jiang and coworkers provide a review paper describing the relationship between Parkinson's disease (PD) and gallstones. This combination seems to be unusual at first glance but there is indeed a remarkably high incidence of gastrointestinal symptoms in early stages of PD. Microbial dysbiosis could contribute to the development of gallstone disease which in turn may have a detrimental impact on the intestinal microbiome, creating a vicious cycle. Moreover, there are interesting similarities between microbial dysbiosis in PD and gallstone disease. The review provides a detailed analysis of potential pathobiological relationships and disease mechanisms. The authors also provide an overview of the effects of probiotic interventions including gut microbiota transplantations in PD patients. A causal connection between PD and gallstone disease still needs to be established but the review presents several interesting working hypotheses that could be addressed in downstream research, especially by prospective cohort studies. The review finally describes how a deeper investigation of the relationship between gallstone disease and PD may potentially lead to the exploration of novel biomarkers that may aid early detection or even prevention of PD. Neuroinflammation is a key feature and important therapeutic target in many CNS disorders.6, 7 Neuroinflammation is a complex phenomenon th","journal":"Neuroprotection/Neuroprotection (Chichester, England. Print)","year":2025,"id":537774,"datarank":0.0,"base_score":0.0,"endowment":0.0,"self_citation_contribution":0.0,"citation_network_contribution":0.0,"self_endowment_contribution":0.0,"citer_contribution":0.0,"corpus_percentile":null,"corpus_rank":null,"citation_count":1,"citer_count":0,"citers_with_citation_signal":0,"citers_with_endowment":0,"datacite_reuse_total":0,"is_dataset":false,"is_dataset_confidence":0.9596,"is_data_producer":false,"deposit_databanks":null,"is_oa":true,"file_count":0,"downloads":0,"has_version_chain":false,"published_date":"2025-01-01","fair_score":null,"fair_percentile":null,"algorithm_id":"datarank_citation_only_1hop_v6","ranking_scope":"data_only","authors":[{"id":244615,"name":"Shen Li","orcid":"0000-0001-8114-1136","position":1,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":1424481,"name":"X M Ji","orcid":null,"position":2,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":851068,"name":"Johannes Boltze","orcid":"0000-0003-3956-4164","position":3,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":416236,"name":"Piotr Walczak","orcid":"0000-0002-3733-3322","position":0,"is_corresponding":true}],"reference_count":14,"raw_metadata":null,"created_at":"2026-07-19T02:52:16.891390Z","pmid":"41479765","pmcid":null,"fwci":null,"citation_percentile":null,"influential_citations":0,"oa_status":null,"license":null,"views":0,"total_file_size_bytes":0,"version_count":0,"fair_f":null,"fair_a":null,"fair_i":null,"fair_r":null,"fair_zscore":null,"fair_rationale":null,"fair_model":null,"fair_agent_version":null,"fair_fulltext_source":null,"fair_has_llm":null,"fair_computed_at":null,"clinical_trials":[],"software_tools":[],"db_accessions":[],"linked_datasets":[],"topics":[]}