The neurologist's dilemma: MS is a grey matter disease that standard clinical and MRI measures cannot assess adequately-No

摘要

Multiple sclerosis (MS) affects the grey matter (GM) of the central nervous system (CNS). This has been known from the earliest clinical and pathologic description of the disease by Charcot,1 who reported the presence of 'plaques located near the GM, which may spread into GM, including deep nuclei and the cortex'. Since then, several other pathologic studies have confirmed that the GM is heavily involved in patients with MS (in terms of both demyelinat-ing lesions and a 'dying back' axonopathy with secondary effects in the cortex), and it became clear that many neurological manifestations of the disease likely reflect a damage of the GM rather than the white matter (WM).