Multiple Sclerosis research links brain activity to steep Cognitive decline

When it comes to communication in the brain, more is usually better but now scientists have linked increased communication in a network of brain regions to more severe mental impairment in patients with early-stage multiple sclerosis (MS).

“Measuring how well this network’s connections are working may provide a way to look beyond the wide-ranging symptoms of MS to help us quantify the disorder’s effects on the brain,” says co-author Maurizio Corbetta, MD, the Norman J. Stupp Professor of Neurology at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis.

“This assessment could be very useful in diagnosing the disease and tracking the effectiveness of new treatments.”

Scientists at Washington University and the University Medical Center at Hamburg-Eppendorf and the University of Tübingen, both in Germany, published the results in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

MS damages brain cell branches, impairing the cells’ ability to communicate. The disease is highly unpredictable and produces a hodgepodge of symptoms that vary from patient to patient. These include fatigue, numbness, dizziness, pain, bowel and bladder dysfunction, visual impairments, speech disorders, headache, depression and problems with balance, coordination and walking.

The brain can redirect energy and resources to make it possible for more signals to flow through damaged circuits. But in MS, the researchers speculate, that redirection may lead to a decrease in the brain’s ability to reconfigure itself for different cognitive tasks, such as speaking, processing sensory information, controlling movement, regulating mood and creating and accessing memory.

The current study focused on whether correlations could be made between the structural damage caused by MS, the cognitive problems experienced by patients and changes in brain networking, which refers to the ability of various regions in the brain to work with each other.

The study involved 16 patients who had been diagnosed with MS in the previous four years. For comparison, scientists also included 16 healthy individuals. All participants were given an extensive battery of behavioral and cognitive tests, as well as brain scans to look for structural damage. Researchers also evaluated the connectedness of brain regions that often work together in networks.