More Than A Multiple

Multiple sclerosis (MS) can be regarded as an inflammatory process involving different areas of the central nervous system (CNS) at different points in time. As its name suggests, multiple sclerosis affects many areas of the CNS.

Multiple sclerosis is more common in people of northern European descent. Women are twice as likely to develop multiple sclerosis than men. MS usually affects people between ages 20 and 50 years, and the average age of onset is about 34 years.

The central nervous system consists of the brain and spinal cord. They process information in our environment and control voluntary muscle movement to allow the body to do certain things.

When you touch something hot, for example, signals are sent by the sensory nerve endings in your hand along your arm nerves, reaching the spinal cord. From there, the signal is transferred up the spinal cord to the brain, where information is processed. Your brain sends a signal down the spinal cord to the nerves of the arm. These nerves cause the muscles of your arm to contract, pulling the hand away from heat.

The nervous system is working effectively, unless there is a disease process that affects the pathways of the spinal cord and brain. Multiple sclerosis is a disease that can affect these pathways. The signals are transmitted in the central nervous system along the trails.

These tracks consist of long fibers called nerves. The nerves are capable of transmitting information from the environment to the brain. Everything you see and touch, taste, smell, or feel is transmitted along nerves to the brain.

The nerves also carry information responsible for alertness, behavior, ability to understand and to reason, ability to communicate with others, and the interpretation of feelings and emotions.

To help convey this information timely, the nerves are covered by a fatty substance called myelin. The insulating myelin nerves and allows them to transmit information to and from the brain in a split second.

If the myelin is disrupted in any way, information transmitted is not only delayed, but it can also be misinterpreted by the brain.

Results of multiple sclerosis in the destruction of myelin surrounding nerve fibers of the central nervous system. The destruction is supposed to be caused by the body's immune system attacks the myelin sheath.

The autoimmune destruction of the myelin sheath leads to areas of demyelination (also known as plaques) in the brain and spinal cord.

These plaques disrupt the transmission of information in the CNS and cause the symptoms observed in multiple sclerosis.

Symptoms of MS may be different from person to person. Visual, sensory and motor symptoms and signs are all part of multiple sclerosis. The clinical manifestations are varied, and therefore there is a wide range of symptoms that may occur. Some people have mild cases of multiple sclerosis with little or no disability over the years. Others have more severe types of MS, requiring confinement to a wheelchair or bed.

Still others may live their whole lives without symptoms (individuals without symptoms of multiple sclerosis are also to have lesions of multiple sclerosis on MRI, or individuals with whom an examination of their brain after death reveals unexpectedly that they have been affected by the disease). This variability makes it difficult in some cases, to diagnose multiple sclerosis. Often, the signs and symptoms are mistaken as being of psychiatric origin.

The first symptoms of multiple sclerosis are often visual changes. A large number of people with multiple sclerosis develop optic NE.