The new Frontiers of MS research
Our biennial conference MS Frontiers 2024 is a place for researchers to share ongoing work. We caught up with six of our PhD students there to talk about their projects.
The MS Frontiers conference brings together lab-based scientists, clinicians, and health care professionals of all career stages. This included 80 early career researchers.
Despite the name, Early Career Researchers can be researchers at any career stage or age. They could be a brand-new PhD student or a postdoctoral researcher with years of experience.
Professor Maria Pia Amato, from the University of Florence gave our plenary talk.
One of the most engaging moments of MS Frontiers for me was the awards ceremony for the work presented by early career researchers. I saw myself in their enthusiasm and emotion; they represent the future of research and the hope for patients.
While at the conference, we caught up with six PhD students about their projects.
When myelin is lost and nerves are damaged, the messages to and from the brain are no longer sent effectively. This leads to increasing disability in people living with MS. We urgently need treatments to stop neurodegeneration.
Recent research revealed that the process of myelin loss might be more complex than we thought. In MS, we know myelin “swells up” before it is lost. We used zebrafish to study this further. By giving the zebrafish certain drugs, we could reverse the swelling.
Current treatments for MS focus on controlling immune attacks, but aren’t able to repair myelin or protect it against further damage.
When mice were treated with these molecules, they were still able to move in the same way as healthy mice. They also lost less myelin (which is damaged in MS). And, their nerve cells stayed healthy.
Since the natural molecule and the drug work on cells in a similar way, we investigated the process further. We found that the activities of the two molecules is controlled by something on the cells called PAC1.
My work shows that mice without PAC1 in their nerve cells have mobility and memory impairments. Therefore, we think focusing on PAC1 specifically could be a potential treatment for MS in the future.
Myelin can be repaired by new myelin-making cells. And by older myelin-making cells which survive an immune attack.
When we look at these surviving cells under the microscope, we can see they repair myelin quickly. But they often put myelin on the wrong part of the nerve cell. And we can see that this happens in the brains of people with MS too. So, we think myelin repair by surviving cells may have both positive and negative effects.
I've been given a once in a lifetime opportunity to study MS with the studentship by the MS Society. So I hope that through my project I'm able to give back in some way and help people with MS.
Research shows dance can benefit the health and well-being of people with conditions like Parkinson’s, dementia, and MS. But the studies on dance for MS so far have been small and focused mostly on physical changes like balance. Scottish Ballet has a programme called SB Elevate® that aims to go beyond this narrow focus, helping with overall well-being.
Participants said they felt mentally better, saw themselves more positively, and felt more determined in their daily lives because of dancing. Socially, they reported feeling part of a supportive community in SB Elevate® where they felt they belonged.
This study shows that dance can boost the personal and social well-being of people with MS. It adds more to the little research on dance for MS by showing that the positive well-being impact can be lasting.
I've really been able to work with so many wonderful people living with MS, as well as different healthcare professionals and also different artists and organisations that are trying to support people on the ground.
In this study, we measured the balance of 23 people with MS when they were standing, by tracking the movements of points on their body. We used special cameras to track the movements.
We combined these measurements with medical assessments to measure severity of MS symptoms, the participant's confidence in walking, and the participant's confidence in their balance.
We found when people stood with one foot in front of the other, there were strong correlations between an inability to balance and a more severe clinical scores. This means we could one day use balance as a predictive way to understand people’s MS.
In progressive MS, nerves become damaged after myelin loss, leading to disability that worsens over time.
We know nerves need a lot of energy of survive, especially without myelin. Mitochondria, so-called 'powerhouses', generate this energy in nerves. In MS, we see more of these mitochondria in damaged nerves. We think this might be important for which nerves survive and which are lost.
We use mice with an MS-like condition to look at changes in these ‘powerhouses’ and the energy they produce very soon after myelin loss. Our research aims to understand why some nerves die over others, and to improve nerve survival in MS patients.
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