More MS news articles for August 2000

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MRI and motor evoked potential findings in nondisabled MS patients
 
Jul 27, 2000 (Datamonitor) - Fatigue is a common symptom of multiple sclerosis (MS) even in the early phases of the disease, when neurological disability is usually still not present. Researchers in Italy investigated the pathophysiology of fatigue by comparing neurophysiological (motor evoked potentials of the four limbs, MEPs) and brain magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) findings in two groups of nondisabled MS patients, those with (n=15) and those without (n=15) fatigue.
 
Fatigue was assessed by an interview and scored by the Fatigue Severity Scale. The two groups were matched for sex, age, disease duration, Expanded Disability Status Scale score, pyramidal Functional System (FS) score, and depression score. MEPs were abnormal in five patients with fatigue and in one patient without fatigue. A significant association was found between the patient scores on the Fatigue Severity Scale, and the burden of MRI lesions. Significantly higher parietal lobe, internal capsule, and periventricular trigone lesion loads were found in patients with fatigue than in those without.
 
Their results agree with a central nervous system origin of fatigue in MS patients. They believe this symptom might be a consequence either of a functional deafferentation of the cortex due to cortico-subcortical interconnection damage or of a demyelination in critical sites of the CNS, such as the cortico-spinal tract. The report is published in the latest issue of the Journal of Neurology (Vol. 247).