User Options:

• View My Saved Content
• Save this page to My Content

E-mail this Page

Although we are making great strides toward understanding the cause of MS and finding more effective treatments, people with the disease continue to face daily challenges while coping with its unpredictable effects and symptoms. An important aspect of the Society’s research program is to understand how MS impacts psychosocial aspects of people’s lives – not only how it impacts those with the disease, but their family members and friends as well. About half of people with multiple sclerosis may experience some degree of cognitive dysfunction , affecting the ability to think, reason, concentrate or remember.

Recently funded projects in this area ask questions such as:

• How does MS impacts mental and emotional functioning?
• What are the best ways to treat the depression that often comes with MS?
• What are the best strategies for coping with employment issues?
• What techniques can improve learning and memory for everyday activities?
• To what extend and at what rate do mild cognitive deficits change or progress over time?

A few examples of recently funded projects focusing on psychosocial issues in MS:

• Christopher Christodoulou, PhD (SUNY at Stony Brook) is using novel imaging technology to determine whether a treatment under study for improving memory can affect patterns of brain activation. An ongoing study is examining whether donepezil, a treatment approved to treat Alzheimer’s disease, can improve memory and cognition in people with MS. Dr. Christodoulou added a novel dimension to this ongoing study, evaluating brain activation patterns using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), an imaging technology that measures the amount of oxygen used by different areas of the brain. By examining 20 people during the performance of tasks involving memory, the team is attempting to determine patterns in brain activation before treatment, and how these patterns may change following treatment. This study will help to evaluate the usefulness of donepezil as a method of improving cognitive function in people with MS.
• Robert J. Buchanan, PhD (Mississippi State University ) is exploring the particular needs of young adults with MS – those between the ages of 18 and 30 – as they complete their education, begin to establish careers, form adult relationships, and start their own households. He is analyzing their physical and mental health, MS disease activity, use of health care services, their perceptions of MS-related stigmatization, and health-related quality of life. Dr. Buchanan is gathering this information by analyzing patients enrolled in the registry of the North American Research Committee on MS, and via a survey of 170 younger adults with MS. This study will provide valuable information on the particular needs and practices of young adults with MS.
• Glenn Wylie, PhD (Kessler Medical Rehabilitation Research and Education Corporation) is examining whether MS affects the cognitive abilities involved in one aspect of decision-making – switching from one task to the other. Switching tasks has been found to involve a specific network of brain areas. Dr. Wylie’s team is using advanced imaging techniques to examine this network of brain areas in 20 people with MS and in 20 controls without MS who are actively engaged in switching tasks. This study may add to the growing body of research on cognitive issues that affect people with MS, and help to improve cognitive function and quality of life.
• Susan M. Courtney, PhD (Johns Hopkins University, funded by a grant from the Brodsky Family Foundation) is developing a method for correlating brain tissue damage with cognitive dysfunction in MS. Diagnosis and treatment of cognitive problems is hampered by the fact that conventional magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) does not directly link brain tissue damage with the degree of physical and cognitive disability experienced by the patient. Dr. Courtney is developing a more precise method to measure tissue injury in the pathways that allow brain regions involved in cognitive function to communicate with each other. Twenty people with MS are undergoing brain scans with two imaging methods called magnetization transfer imaging (MTI) and diffusion tensor imaging (DTI). These scans are determining the extent of injury in specific brain pathways. Subjects are also undergoing functional MRI, which can detect which areas of the brain are being used during different cognitive tasks. All of the measurements are then being coordinated to determine the relationship between structural injuries to tissues that occur in MS and actual cognitive functioning.