Justice Holliday

Research on MS

(New technique for imaging myelin loss and repair shows potential for identifying compounds with future potential to treat MS)

Multiple sclerosis is an autoimmune disease that affects that brain and spinal cord. Some background on what myelin is. According to A&P the principles of anatomy and physiology, “Myelin sheaths are the multilayered lipid and protein coverings, formed by Schwann cells and oligodendrocytes, around axons of many peripheral and central nervous system neurons.” Doctors’s commonly use MRI’s to look at brain disease activity but they have to develop a new way to look at the brains activity because an MRI is not sensitive enough to reveal specific information in the brain.

Dr. Wang and colleagues have created a new way to see specific areas that are inflamed in brain by injected a molecular probe called MeDAS into the blood stream. The MeDAS binds with the myelin. They injected several lab rats with the MeDAS and the used PET imaging and they found exactly were the myelin was lost to were as it was still intact. They treated the rats with an experimental drug that is supposed to stimulate myelin repair.

This new drug can help people with MS because it shows exactly where myelin is lost and where it is active so that they will know if inflammation is present in the brain because people with MS have inflammation in the brain. Since the new drug can show where the inflammation is in the brain, maybe doctors will be able to reduce the amount of inflammation and slow down the process. With new drugs and technology sciences may be able to find a cure to MS.

Citations

“New technique for imaging myelin loss and repair shows potential for identifying compounds with future potential to treat MS.” National Muliple Sclerosis Society. National Muliple Sclerosis Society, 03 Oct 2013. Web. 13 Oct 2013.

Tortora, Gerard, and Bryan Derrickson. A&P principles of anatomy and physiology. 13th ed. Danvers: John Wiley & Sons Inc, 2011. G 18. Print.