A little common sense in research

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frodo
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A little common sense in research

Post by frodo »

Common sense is not very common nowadays. Specially in the MS research world. At least there are some authors that use it still.

They conclude that "if the initiating cause is poorly understood then curing MS is unlikely".

And this sentence is remarkably important because most research groups are trying to cure EAE or to understand the immunology of the demyelination. And these events are not related at all with the MS starting events nor with the aetiology.

For what we know now, lesions and demyelinations are an advanced state of the disease. Before lesions develope, some pre-active areas appear, which show activated microglia, and before that, some Normal Appearing White Matter (NAWM) areas appear. For what we know the initial steps of MS evolution are inside this NAWM areas, but very few research groups investigate this field. It is really difficult to find studies about it.

Anyway, I think the article is very interesting and worth reading. I copy here the abstract.

Proteomics of a conundrum: thoughts on addressing the aetiology vs. progression of Multiple Sclerosis.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25580822

Abstract

Currently in the field of Multiple Sclerosis (MS) research there is an ongoing debate to the cause of the disease. MS is widely considered to begin with an autoimmune dysregulation. The disease does have a prominent autoimmune component however this may be representative of a secondary effect.

There is growing evidence that the disease may be initiated by an underlying degeneration of oligodendrocytes. In our viewpoint we discuss the potential differences between the aetiology and progression of MS. For the most part, proteomic analysis has focused on the autoimmune component of the disease. We suggest that proteomic analysis should be applied to investigating oligodendrocyte degeneration.

We discuss the potential of the cuprizone animal model of chemical induced demyelination and its usefulness in understanding oligodendrocyte degeneration in. Immune suppressive therapies are effective at reducing clinical symptoms and improving quality of life. However, a cure is still lacking and as such the disease does still progress. We suggest that if the initiating cause is poorly understood then curing MS is unlikely. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.
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Leonard
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Re: A little common sense in research

Post by Leonard »

sure, it is a step in the right direction.

but even investigating oligodendrocyte degeneration, as they propose, is step number 5 in a long cascade.

we need to understand, conceptually, what is on top.

the culprit lies somewhere on the intersection of cellular fat metabolism, EBV virus and immunity.

see also the last several pages of http://www.thisisms.com/forum/general-d ... 15188.html
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