Multiple Sclerosis (MS) occurs when the body’s immune system attacks its own myelin, disrupting communication within the central nervous system.
A fatty substance called myelin protects the nerve fibres in the central nervous system (the brain and the spinal cord). Myelin has been likened to the insulation surrounding an electrical wire, with the substance helping messages travel quickly and smoothly between the brain and nerves in the rest of the body.
In people diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis, the immune system, which normally helps to fight off infections, mistakes myelin for a foreign body and attacks it. This results in a loss or decrease in the communication signals in the central nervous system, leading to a range of symptoms, including paralysis, fatigue, tingling, pain, mood swings, and numbness.
Currently, researchers do not know what triggers this attack response to myelin by the body’simmune system. In a bid to identify the causes, ongoing research focuses on a range of age, gender,genetic, environmental, immunological, and infectious factors.
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