Demyelinating Diseases — New Pathological Insights, New Therapeutic Targets

Virtually every textbook of neurology or general medicine includes chapters on demyelinating diseases, with most of the attention devoted to multiple sclerosis. The concept of multiple sclerosis as a demyelinating disease is deeply ingrained. The early description of multiple sclerosis by Charcot stressed the loss of myelin. The diagnosis of multiple sclerosis rests in part on the demonstration, by measurement of evoked potentials, of slowed action-potential conduction, a physiologic hallmark of demyelination.The lipid-rich myelin sheath is produced by Schwann cells in peripheral nerves and by oligodendrocytes in the brain and spinal cord, and myelin possesses high electrical resistance and . . .