I do this blog so that I can learn…So As I learn, so can you. In case you hadn’t realised I have been showing more of an interest in Natalizumab, because our reasearch has been looking at that. ProfK has been busy trying to keep the ATTACK-MS trial going, which aims to get people on ..read more

Yesterday I asked Is ECTRIMS2024 going to kill my beautiful idea? This was because the title of an ECTRIMS 20024 presentation seems to put a hole in our idea about how MS drugs may work. This makes it simple to explain to people what we are observing in MS. If the idea is wrong I will have to modify my views…..I have to expect that this will happen sometime as we know more how things work….and then we will get to the experience of a kicking from the other side. We have done a bit of kicking ourselves and ProfAngry is the bovver boy…Also known as The clogger from Derby:-). The beautiful idea he ..read more

No sooner has ProfG retired from Neurology that we thrown on the ECTRIMS maggot pile…For many years NDG, Alison and ProfB has been doing a live feed from ECTRIMS for you the punters to ask questions about the meeting…. I guess just as Phil and Holly have had the old Heave Ho, we have been cast aside by the money men and women at ECTRIMS. Once they started to charge people to attend online, they began restricting what goes out of the meeting. So no need to buy a Danish Flag for this meeting and I will not get any Aquavit so it makes it look like NDG is drinking water…PS. By the way this is a Jo ..read more

I have been doing the rounds making up a story of memory B cells being important in MS and have made the suggestion that all effective agents target memory B cells….So I was excited or was it horrified to see the ECTRIMS poster Switching from intravenous to subcutaneous anti-CD20 mediated B cell depletion preserves memory B cells in patients with RRMS POSTER ID P810 If this is true the idea of memory B cells has to be dead as the evidence is there that subcutaneous B cell inhibition is essentially no different in controling MS to the Infusion, otherwise why would we be getting subcutsaneous oc ..read more

Neuroprotection is back on the agenda. But, are there any new ideas to be had. Or have we seen it all before… Granted mitochondrial burn out is probably an end point for a number of process in neurodegeneration, the outcomes are sure to vary depending on what and where the intervention takes place. Astrocytes as a new target? Astrocytes are trash collectors of the central nervous system, similar to macrophages found elsewhere in the body. There are a couple of ways astrocytes can go wrong in MS; firstly at the level of the blood brain barrier and meninges where their foot processes form the g ..read more

Bandwagon science gets lots of followerss doing the same thing in every condition. It is done by well intentioned academic scientists, who spot a funding opportunity and who do the circuit at every meeting as a flavour-of the month bit of science. However, because there is no drug (company) at the end of the study, it is typically done on a shoestring and the studies are offten underpowered and are too small and studies are invariably inconclusive. We are in that phase with microbiome studes now I think, every country, every disease doing the same thing, in aminals and humans:-(. Next up in MS ..read more

ProfG has sadly retired from Neurology to do studies on EBV, as a prelude to curing MS? This follows on from the view that EBV is THE cause of MS. However not every body believes this. You only have to have one case of definative MS that is not caused by EBV to burst the bubble. Maybe it is that EBV is only A cause of MS. There are plenty of cases of MS, where they have not found evidence of infection with EBV. But have people looked hard enough Has been the question and excuse? In this study from Sweden they have the view that Rubella (German Measles) is another cause…Cue Molecular Mimicary a ..read more

I was asked about the Late Breaking Sessions and ECTRIMS 2024. There is MS STAT-2 trial results and the trial results of tolebrutinib. Whiles we have to wait until it is presented to see how uninformative the title is, I am expecting the tolebrutinib trial result to be released before ECTRIMS as they need to stop insider dealing in shares. Is it sell sell sell or buy buy buy. They will no doubt announce the result to the shareholders. Will the share price (below) go up or down? In the late-breakers there is a study on EBV. I said when asked about it a couple of days ago. Big deal an expanded ..read more

Today’s paper is Giannopapas V, Smyrni V, Kitsos DK, Chasiotis AK, Stavrogianni K, Papagiannopoulou G, Tsivgoulis G, Voumvourakis K, Giannopoulos S, Bakalidou D. Tibial nerve stimulation in the management of primary sexual dysfunction in patients with multiple sclerosis: a pilot randomized control trial. Neurol Sci. 2024. doi: 10.1007/s10072-024-07687-2. Introduction: Sexual dysfunction (SD) is a common symptom that affects 40-90% of patients with multiple sclerosis (MS). Previous studies have highlighted the negative impact of sexual dysfunction in the mental health status and overall qu ..read more

Shen J, Ye Q, Luo F, Yu T, Miao J, Wang W, Yuan H. Causal relationship between multiple sclerosis and primary Sjögren’s syndrome: a two-sample mendelian randomization study. Metab Brain Dis. 2024 . doi: 10.1007/s11011-024-01379-8. Epub ahead of print. PMID: 39017967. This study aims to investigate the causal relationship between primary Sjögren’s syndrome (SS) and multiple sclerosis (MS) using a two-sample Mendelian randomization (MR) analysis to provide insights into their common mechanisms and implications for therapeutic strategies. We utilized data from Genome-Wide Association Studies (GWA ..read more