Grant: Project Grant

The cause of chronic progression in multiple sclerosis (MS) remains a mystery. One cause, which is suspected by many experts, is so-called oxidative stress. This refers to the generation of abnormally increased amounts of highly reactive molecules that oxidize many other molecules and damage cells, particularly nerve cells, leading to their premature death. Cells have intrinsic mechanisms in place to deactivate/detoxify these highly reactive molecules. One of these, and perhaps the most important, is to produce the anti-oxidant molecule, glutathione (GSH). It is now possible to measure the amount of GSH in the brain of living subjects by implementing special sequences on MRI scanners to perform magnetic resonance spectroscopy (MRS) that is specifically designed to measure GSH. For this project, we propose to use one such special sequence to measure GSH in the brain of patients with MS. This will allow us to answer a number of important questions related to the role of oxidative stress in driving disease progression in MS, and also allow us to calculate the number of patients that would be required to use this technique to assess the ability of drugs to treat oxidative stress.