: Autoimmune glial fibrillary acidic protein astrocytopathy (GFAP-A) is an antibody-related astrocytic disease for which a specific GFAP antibody serves as biological marker. Indeed, cerebral spinal fluid positive and/or seropositivity important basis its diagnosis. However, because patients with autoimmune encephalitis or demyelinating diseases can have similar profile, termed overlapping synd...

Myelination in the nervous system is a tightly regulated process that is mediated by both soluble and non-soluble factors acting on axons and glial cells. This process is bi-directional and involves a variety of neurotrophic and gliotrophic factors acting in paracrine and autocrine manners. Neuron-derived trophic factors play an important role in the control of early proliferation and different...

Interferon-beta is a mainstay therapy of demyelinating diseases, but its effects are incomplete in human multiple sclerosis and several of its animal models. In this study, we demonstrate dramatic improvements of clinical, histological, and laboratory parameters in in vivo mouse models of demyelinating disease through combination therapy with IFN-beta plus vitamin B(12) cyanocobalamin (B(12)CN)...

Oligodendrocytes, the myelinating cells of CNS axons, are highly vulnerable to excitotoxic signals mediated by glutamate receptors of the AMPA and kainate classes. Receptors in these cells are commonly activated by glutamate that is released from axons and glial cells. In addition, oligodendrocytes contribute to the control of extracellular glutamate levels by means of their own transporters. H...

The central nervous system demyelinating diseases are a group of disorders with different etiologies, characterized by inflammatory lesions that are associated with loss of myelin and eventually axonal damage. In this group the most studied ones are multiple sclerosis (MS), neuromyelitis optic (NMO) and acute disseminated encephalomyelitis (ADEM). The cerebrospinal fluid is essential to differe...

Nowhere else in neurology, with the exception perhaps of stroke, has the management of a disease evolved so much since the last issue of Continuum devoted to the subject as in multiple sclerosis (MS). In this issue of Continuum, Guest Editor Dr Stephen C. Krieger has brought together a group of world-class experts to help us diagnose and organize our approach to the management of our patients w...

Myelin oligodendrocyte glycoprotein (MOG), a member of the immunoglobulin (Ig) superfamily, is a myelin protein solely expressed at the outermost surface of myelin sheaths and oligodendrocyte membranes. This makes MOG a potential target of cellular and humoral immune responses in inflammatory demyelinating diseases. Due to its late postnatal developmental expression, MOG is an important marker ...

Multiple sclerosis (MS) is an autoimmune mediated neurodegenerative disease characterized by demyelination and oligodendrocyte (OL) loss in the central nervous system and accompanied by local inflammation and infiltration of peripheral immune cells. Although many risk factors and symptoms have been identified in MS, the pathology is complicated and the cause remains unknown. It is also unclear ...

Demyelinating diseases of the central nervous system include a wide spectrum of different disorders that may resemble multiple sclerosis (MS). The diagnosis of MS is based on typical clinical and paraclinical criteria. The simplified McDonald's criteria, which combine clinical picture, NMR findings, CSF analysis and visual evoked potentials, are appropriate for daily neurologic routine. If some...

Damage to the Central Nervous Systems (CNS) in Multiple Sclerosis (MS) seems to be mainly due to chronic inflammation of the CNS with superimposed bouts of inflammatory activity by the adaptive immune system. The immune mediated damage can be amplified by neurodegenerative mechanisms in damaged axons including anterograde or retrograde axonal or transynaptic degeneration, synaptic pruning and n...