Age-related effects of MS may prove reversible
Harvard stem cell researchers and scientists at the University of Cambridge in the United Kingdom have found that the age-related degeneration in conditions such as multiple sclerosis (MS) may be reversible. The researchers, co-led by Associate Professor Amy Wagers of Harvard’s Department of Stem Cell and Regenerative Biology and the Harvard Stem Cell Institute, has found that impairment of the body’s ability to replace protective myelin sheaths, which surround nerve fibers and allow them to send signals properly, may be reversible, offering new hope that therapeutic strategies aimed at restoring efficient regeneration can be effective in the central nervous system throughout life. In a proof-of-principle study published in the journal Cell Stem Cell, the researchers report that defects in the regeneration of the myelin sheaths surrounding nerves, which are lost in diseases such as MS, may be at least partially corrected after exposing an old animal to the circulatory system of a...