This review proposes that multiple sclerosis is driven by viral-induced immunization to neural antigens in individuals with underlying immune regulation abnormalities.
ConclusionsMost available evidence suggests that infection with enveloped viruses of the myxo-, paramyxo-, herpes-, and poxvirus families may occasionally induce immunization to neural antigens, myelin antigens in particular, and a consequent encephalomyelitis localized to the white matter. In individuals with a genetically determined abnormality of immune regulation, this process may not be suppressed and may give rise to the recurrent or long-lasting periods of new lesion formation which we call multiple sclerosis. Exacerbations may be provoked by further virus infections or by childbirth. The responsible white matter antigen(s) have not been firmly identified and the immunoregu-latory abnormality is unknown. The character of the lesions appears to be determined by multiple simultaneous immune responses to different antigens and multiple superimposed immunopathologic effects.Much of what is presented in the present review may require revision as the further application of monoclonal antibody techniques ...
Waksman et al. (1984) studied this question.