Experimental design of a MGE-NSC grafting study performed in chronically epileptic rats. It shows the creation of host rats with chronic epilepsy for grafting and sham-grafting surgery (on the left side), and the preparation of fresh neural stem cells (NSCs) expanded in vitro from embryonic medial ganglionic eminence (MGE) as donor cells (upper half on right). The various measurements performed after MGE-NSC grafting include frequency, duration and severity of spontaneous seizures, learning and memory function, graft cell survival and differentiation, and effects of grafts on expression of GDNF in hippocampal astrocytes (lower half on right). [Reproduced from: Waldau et al., Stem Cells, 28:1153–1164].