Decreases in Ms - Inoculated Mice

At present multiple sclerosis (MS) 1 presents a very complex medical problem. There are three fundamental reasons for this: first, the diagnosis of MS is extremely difficult (1) ; secondly, the etiology of the disease is unknown (2) ; and finally, a problem that is the keystone to the analysis of the other problems is the lack of a system, other than man, in which the disease can be studied. In experiments initiated to investigate the etiology of MS, Palsson et al. (3) and Field (4) described a disease in sheep and mice, respectively, that had been inoculated with MS brain homogenate. In each instance the disease was characterized by spongiform degeneration of the central nervous system (CNS). The significance of these findings is difficult to assess because: (a) these results have not been confirmed by others despite several attempts, and (b) it is not possible to exclude the possibility of contamination of the MS brain material or the test animals with scrapie, an agent with known potential for causing spongiform degeneration in these animals (5).