Contribution of Slow-Burning Inflammation and Chronic Demyelination to Axonal Damage
https://www.msard-journal.com/article/S ... X/abstract
Highlights
• Chronic expanding lesions showed a significantly higher rate of progressive tissue rarefication inside lesion core, as measured by normalised Mean Diffusivity (nMD), compared to chronic stable lesions
• The magnitude of nMD change was significantly correlated with the rate of lesion expansion
• Analysis of retinal ganglion cells in eyes with severe optic nerve demyelination revealed a similar rate of axonal loss to the degree of tissue rarefaction observed in stable lesions
Discussion
The results of the study suggest that the slow-burning inflammation at the lesion's edge (as measured by lesion expansion), is likely to have a greater impact on tissue damage (as measured by nMD change), when compared to stable chronically demyelinated lesions. The similar modest degree of tissue damage was also observed in chronically demyelinated fibers of the optic nerve.