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Americas National Multiple Sclerosis Society has provided a grant to a Wayne State University School of Medicine professor to explore a new model of MS pathology.

Alexander Gow, Ph.D., the Charles H. Gershenson Distinguished Fellow Professor and associate director of the WSU Centre for Molecular Medicine and Genetics, will use the three-year, $663,959 grant for his study Neurodegeneration Associated With Metabolic Stress In Oligodendrocytes.

From the early-mid phases of MS, Dr Gow said, the clinical symptoms are caused by damage to the brain in the forms of autoimmune lesions, atrophy in the white matter and grey matter of the brain and cognitive deficits. So far most studies have focused on finding disease-modifying therapies for the autoimmune component of MS, but have tended to ignore the cognitive changes.

Several important findings have come to light in recent years, he said, including the revelation that strong immunosuppression of patients for several years only modestly slows MS progression while damage to cortical brain regions continues.

In this study, we tackle both of these issues using a new model of MS pathology that does not involve autoimmune stimulation to generate disease symptoms, said Dr Gow, who also is a professor of Paediatrics and of Neurology for WSU. Rather, we activate metabolic stress in oligodendrocytes to cause dysfunction and death of these cells, which is a potential disease mechanism that has gained experimental support from several laboratories.

Oligodendrocytes are a type of cell that produce a membrane called myelin that coats axons, the pathways by which the brain sends messages to the muscles.

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MS-UK | MS News and research