MS research explores the various mechanisms involved at different stages of the disease, including inflammation, demyelination, neurodegeneration and repair. It uses animal models, the best known and most used is experimental autoimmune encephalitis induced in mice or primates. Despite a better understanding, due to animal models, of the mechanisms of inflammation and repair in the central nervous system (CNS), the heterogeneity of MS and its long duration consequences on handicap require other approaches.
Why is research on post mortem human nervous tissue still useful ?
1. Inflammatory demyelinating diseases of the CNS are not limited to MS and observation of human tissues allows to define new entities
2 The observation of diseased human tissues makes it possible to identify hitherto undescribed lesions and to develop other hypotheses.
3. All the models are incomplete. The analysis of human tissues remain essential and has to be confronted with the data obtained from experimental models.
4.
More and more new drugs are being offered. One of the contemporary challenges is to evaluate their action on the lesions and on the repair of the nervous system, as well as their possible side effects. A collection of well-studied samples is essential to improve the therapeutic approach.