This Is MS Multiple Sclerosis Community: Knowledge & Support

I was reading something from Neuroscience Canada's "Brain Repair Program" that said 90% of what we know about the human brain, we've learned in the last 15 years. (I think the author made the statement in 2005)

I'm just speculating now, but I wouldn't mind betting that our knowledge of the brain is increasing exponentially, and has been all along. And the bright side of that is that we seem to be hitting that part of the exponential curve that goes almost vertical.

So...without actually doing any math, roughly speaking, that should mean that the amount of new information about the brain learned in the year 2005 alone is probably roughly equal to everything we learned from the beginning of time up until the late 1980's or early 1990's. And the amount we will learn in 2006 will be even greater, and so on and so on...

Dignan,

This reminds me of a paper I read (from about ten years ago) where the neuro admitted that in terms of what is known about the brain 'we are still in the dark ages'. But it must be good news. Treatments for brain disease e.g. tumours, ALS, MS etc are still pretty pathetic - I suspect that future findings will have read across as will future treatments.

My guess is that viruses may play a role in many of the brain diseases. Following the thread on EBV my secretary came into work with shingles. I looked this up to find that its the chicken pox virus (which I knew about) and that the virus resides in the CNS and reactivates from time to time. She had awful facial pain (which can be an MS symptom).


Bromley

Dignan

I am banking on it, as I guess we all are.

Fingers crossed that they will discover something key in 2006.

I am all for stem cell therapy - I'd be there today if I thought it would cure me. But until the cause of the lesions is known, the therapy will only resolve symptoms.

And I agree with you Ian, it can only be a virus....what else makes sense??

That's my view - although I am relatively new to this disease. (Dx'd this feb).

J.

Applying this idea to what's in the pipeline right now, the drugs in phase III today were mostly discovered in the 1980's or early 1990's, when we knew relatively little about the brain.

So again I'll speculate...if there are drugs that can reduce lesions by 90% plus and relapses by over 50% (FTY720, Tysabri...) based on our knowledge 10-15 years ago, it fills me with great hope that some of the drugs currently in phases I and II of the clinical trial process are going to be significantly better than that.

Tovaxin and Neurovax get people excited and I'm hopeful about them too, but there are 46 treatments in phase II (give or take) right now. A lot of those will fail, but of the drugs that move to phase III, I'm willing to bet that at least a couple of them will be much better than anything we've seen to date. As always, we still have to wait a long time, but I believe our therapeutic options in 2010-2012 are going to be fantastic compared with our options in 2005.

And my ranting here doesn't even factor in the possibilities of stem cells...

I agree with you Jaded, until we don’t know the cause of MS it would be impossible to cure it. This is the basis to go for a valid treatment; otherwise we’re walking in the wrong side of the problem.

I really hope some team is seeking for the cause of EM.

Rita