There are two distinct subtypes of multiple sclerosis in Asians, opticospinal (OS-multiple sclerosis) and conventional (C-multiple sclerosis). In OS-multiple sclerosis, selective and severe involvement of the optic nerves and spinal cord is characteristic, though its mechanisms are unknown. The present study aimed to find out possible differences in the cytokine/chemokine profiles in CSF betwee...

BACKGROUND The number and volume of abnormalities on baseline brain magnetic resonance images in patients with initial findings suggestive of multiple sclerosis are known to predict outcome in terms of disability. However, no long-term data exist on specific locations or types of lesions. OBJECTIVE To assess the long-term predictive value of baseline magnetic resonance imaging parameters, inc...

BACKGROUND The presence of periventricular lesions (PVL) on MRI scans is part of the revised McDonald multiple sclerosis (MS) diagnostic criteria. However, PVL can be found in other neurological diseases including stroke and migraine. Migraine is highly prevalent in patients with MS. OBJECTIVE To determine if PVL are specific for patients with MS compared to stroke and migraine. METHODS We ...

Multiple sclerosis is a chronic inflammatory disease of the central nervous system, associated with demyelination and neurodegeneration. The mechanisms of tissue injury are currently poorly understood, but recent data suggest that mitochondrial injury may play an important role in this process. Since mitochondrial injury can be triggered by reactive oxygen and nitric oxide species, we analysed ...

BACKGROUND The biological basis of gray matter (GM) atrophy in multiple sclerosis is not well understood, but GM damage seems to be the most critical factor leading to permanent disability. OBJECTIVE To assess to what extent white matter (WM) lesions contribute to regional GM atrophy in multiple sclerosis. DESIGN Because optic pathway GM atrophy and optic radiation lesions, rather than bein...

Multiple sclerosis is a chronic inflammatory disease of the central nervous system, associated with demyelination and neurodegeneration. The mechanisms of tissue injury are poorly understood, but recent data suggest that mitochondrial injury may play an important role in this process. Mitochondrial injury can be triggered by reactive oxygen and nitric oxide species, and we recently provided evi...

Multiple sclerosis diagnosis and patient follow-up can be helped by an evaluation of the lesion load in MRI sequences. A lot of automatic methods to segment these lesions are available in the literature. The MICCAI workshop Multiple Sclerosis (MS) lesion segmentation Challenge 08 allows to test and compare these algorithms. This paper presents a method designed to detect hyperintense signal are...

A 48-year-old Caucasian woman was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis in 1988. She had an episode of left optic neuritis in 1984 which was treated with a course of oral prednisolone and resolved over a period of 3 months. In 1988, she developed right-sided paraesthesia and weakness. This was followed several months later by deterioration in her mobility with an ataxic gait and impaired coordinati...

Multiple sclerosis is affecting approximately 1 out of every 1000 individuals in the western world. After axons are denuded of myelin in the early stages of the disease, remyelination occurs, but eventually this process fails, and permanent disability is the result. During development, the polysialylated form of the neural cell adhesion molecule NCAM, PSA-NCAM, is expressed at the axonal surfac...

multiple sclerosis (ms) is a chronic inflammatory disease of the central nervous system characterized by widespread inflammation, focal demyelination and a variable degree of axonal and neuronal loss. ionic conductances regulate t cell activation as well as neuronal function and thus have been found to play a crucial role in ms pathogenesis. since present therapeutical approaches are only parti...