New collaborative research led by Institute for Neuroscience and Cardiovascular Research colleague Dave Lyons has uncovered a process by which nerve cells damaged in multiple sclerosis (MS) could potentially repair themselves.
A team of researchers from the MS Society Edinburgh Centre for MS Research has found that myelin - the protective coating surrounding nerves – undergoes an initial swelling phase when damaged, suggesting it may have the ability to heal itself.
The findings could offer a significant new opportunity to help slow, stop or even prevent the degeneration of nerve cells in MS and other conditions like Alzheimer's disease.
Myelin damage
In MS, the immune system attacks myelin in the brain and spinal cord and disrupts messages being sent around the body. This impacts how people move, think and feel. There are currently no treatments that can replace damaged or lost myelin.
The swelling of myelin has been observed previously, but not investigated in detail. Researchers thought the reaction was linked to the way brain tissue is preserved in the lab.
This new study used advanced technology to observe live zebrafish and tissue from mice and humans who lived with MS to follow what happened to damaged myelin over time.
Oligodendrocytes in zebrafish exhibiting the myelin swelling. These images are from living zebrafish with fluorescent reporters that allowed researcher to see the phenomenon they report in their new paper.
Swelling reaction
The study found that the swelling of myelin is a natural process in the body that can be followed by repair of the damaged myelin, suggesting it could be a critical step in the body’s fight to prevent myelin loss.
The findings indicate that the nervous system has a powerful – and until now unrecognised – ability to withstand early myelin damage.
This offers a potential window of opportunity to intervene before the myelin completely breaks down, says the research team.
The study, funded by the MS Society and Wellcome Trust, was published in the journal Science.
Dave Lyons said:
“These findings suggest that intervening during this early swelling phase could protect myelin before it is lost, offering us to think about potential new treatment routes that would complement current treatments. For decades, scientists have focused on remyelination, the process of rebuilding myelin once it is already lost. This continues to hold promise but now that we have this new avenue of exploration, it could be the start of something else very special.”
Dr Emma Gray, Director of Research at the MS Society, said:
“We know that the body has the ability to regenerate new myelin after it’s lost. But this study shows that existing myelin can sometimes self-heal before it’s fully lost, a process we hadn’t focused on before. It doesn’t replace current strategies, but it adds another potential way to protect myelin early on. MS can be debilitating, exhausting and unpredictable and for tens of thousands of people there are still no treatments that work for them. There’s still a lot to learn, but discoveries like this are essential to help people with MS in the future.”
