New MRI procedure makes multiple sclerosis visible

New MRI procedure makes multiple sclerosis visible unknown

Multiple sclerosis is a neurological disease that usually leads to permanent disabilities. It affects around 2.9 million people worldwide, and around 15,000 in Switzerland alone. One key feature of the disease is that it causes the patient’s own immune system to attack and destroy the myelin sheaths in the central nervous system. These protective sheaths insulate the nerve fibres, much like the plastic coating around a copper wire. Myelin sheaths ensure that electrical impulses travel quickly and efficiently from nerve cell to nerve cell. If they are damaged or become thinner, this can lead to irreversible visual, speech and coordination disorders. 

So far, however, it hasn’t been possible to visualise the myelin sheaths well enough to use this information for the diagnosis and monitoring of MS. Now researchers at ETH Zurich and University of Zurich, led by Markus Weiger and Emily Baadsvik from the Institute for Biomedical Engineering, have developed a new MRI procedure that maps the condition of the myelin sheaths more accurately than was previously possible. The researchers successfully tested the procedure on healthy people for the first time.

Their insights have been published in the journals Magnetic Resonance in Medicine and Science Advances.