New research suggests damaged myelin can heal itself
A new study has shown that myelin (the protective coating around nerve fibres) can sometimes heal itself after it’s been damaged, but before it’s lost.
We often talk about the need for MS treatments that can repair myelin. Until now, that has meant looking for ways to boost the body’s natural ability to put new myelin onto nerves.
But this new study from the MS Society Edinburgh Centre for MS Research has uncovered a different way to look at myelin repair. By reversing damage in myelin before it’s completely lost.
This discovery is exciting because it opens up the opportunity to find ways to protect myelin in MS at an early stage.
But the researchers are clear there’s still a lot we don’t know about this healing process. And more work is needed before this could lead to treatments.
What the researchers found
Researchers found when myelin is first damaged, it can swell up. And this swelling doesn’t automatically mean it will be lost. In fact, the study showed that swollen myelin can sometimes return to normal.
Until now, myelin swelling was thought to be an artefact of the way brain tissue is preserved in the lab.
But in this study researchers used new techniques to observe living zebrafish and tissue from mice and humans who lived with MS. This meant they could follow what happens to damaged myelin over time. And confirm this swelling is a natural process in the body.
Why this could matter
This research shows there may be two distinct processes to focus on in myelin repair:
- Making new myelin to replace damaged myelin
- Repairing damaged myelin itself
Both could be important in future treatments.
These findings suggest that intervening during this early swelling phase could protect myelin before it is lost, offering us the opportunity to explore potential new treatment routes that could 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.
Still a lot to learn
Dr Emma Gray, our Director of Research, says:
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 identified 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.
This discovery opens up new questions for researchers to answer:
- What drives myelin swelling?
- Does the swelling behave differently depending on the type of damage that occurs?
- How can we measure and target this swelling in people living with MS?
- Is repaired myelin as effective as new myelin?
What’s next?
The team plan to investigate the mechanisms behind myelin swelling and whether it can be influenced by drugs. They’ll explore whether previously rejected drugs could now be revisited, using the right measurements, to see if they help myelin recover.
This research is an early step, but it offers hope for new ways to protect and preserve myelin in the future.
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