Advances of cortical damage in multiple sclerosis / 中华神经科杂志

ABSTRACT

Multiple sclerosis (MS) is typically considered to be a chronic inflammatory-demyelinating disease of central nervous system white matter, and less attention is paid to its cortical damage. With the application of immunohistochemical and imaging techniques that are more sensitive to cortical demyelination, more and more evidence has shown that lesions are also often located in the cortex of MS patients. As research progresses, the mechanisms of cortical damage are more likely associated with meningeal inflammation, and the extent of cortical lesion involvement becomes more widespread with disease progression, and cortical lesion burden positively correlates with the severity of physical and cognitive impairments. In recent years, a new subtype of MS, with lesions involving only the cerebral cortex and spinal cord, has been reported in Lancet through pathological study of 100 autopsy cases of MS, which is different from classical MS with white matter lesions, and enriches the connotation of cortical damage of MS.