Drugs with the ability to regenerate neurons to reverse the damage of multiple sclerosis

What is multiple sclerosis?

Main  symptoms of Multiple Sclerosis

Normal nerve vs a damaged nerve by
Multiple Sclerosis

     It is a disease caused by a damage to the myelin sheath, which is a protective layer around the neurons of the brain and spinal cord. The damage of the sheath causes nerve impulses diminish or stop, causing loss of balance, muscle spasms, weakness, among other symptoms. This disease mainly affects women between 20 and 40 years old, but can be diagnosed at any age. The sheath is damaged when the body's own immune cells attack the nervous system, which means, cells attack themselves by treating natural antigens produced by the body as if they were strangers. 

Signal from brain in a normal neuron vs a damaged
myelin signal

Several United States institutions conducted research on 727 drugs to find the effect for the treatment of multiple sclerosis. They discovered that clobetasol and miconazole, which are used to treat athlete's foot and eczema, has the ability to regenerate damaged brain cells for multiple sclerosis in mice. Previously, they knew there existed stem cells in the nervous system that repair the damage caused by this disease. However, they did not know how to guide them. Paul Tesar, one of the main authors of the study, said that his focus was to find a drug that catalyze the body's own stem, thereby replacing damaged cells by multiple sclerosis cells. 

      With this study, coauthor Miller says that this finding represents a paradigm shift in the treatment of patients with multiple sclerosis. It is expected from the patients to be checked through clinical trials. For now we have tested the effect of drugs on human stem cells and it has been seen a similar response in mice.
   It is unfortunate that there are not known definite causes for this disease, but its being said to be likely that those who have a family history of multiple sclerosis, or live somewhere where the disease is more common, are more prone to suffer from it. These drugs are expected to open their doors for the cure of multiple sclerosis, as currently there are only treatments that slow the progression of the disease.

Credits:

http://www.agenciasinc.es/Noticias/Dos-farmacos-cutaneos-regeneran-neuronas-danadas-por-esclerosis-multiple

http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/spanish/ency/article/000737.htm

Images from:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/b/bf/Symptoms_of_multiple_sclerosis.svg/220px-Symptoms_of_multiple_sclerosis.svg.png

http://www.saturdayeveningpost.com/wp-content/uploads/satevepost/illustration_myelin.jpg

http://www.dailytimesgazette.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/Multiple-Sclerosis-pill1.jpg

http://www.saturdayeveningpost.com/wp-content/uploads/satevepost/illustration_myelin.jpg

http://multiplesclerosis.net/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/global_2x.png