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Medicine

Collateral damage repaired

Nature volume 422, pages 671–672 (2003)Cite this article

Multiple sclerosis is characterized by immunological attacks across a wide front in the brain and spinal cord. In mice, the damage can be partly repaired by neural precursor cells, delivered into the blood or spinal fluid.

Multiple sclerosis affects nearly one million people worldwide, subjecting people from young adulthood onwards to repeated immunological attacks on the brain and spinal cord. Twice as many women as men are afflicted with the disease. The effects vary depending on where exactly in the nervous system the attacks occur, but paralysis, blindness, loss of sensation and a lack of coordination are among the types of devastation wrought by an immune system gone awry. Until now, treatment strategies have generally been aimed at blocking the autoimmune attacks and reducing the amount of collateral damage caused. On page 688 of this issue, Pluchino and colleagues1 describe a complementary approach — repairing some of the harm already done.

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Figure 1: Rescuing the nervous system.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. the Department of Neurological Sciences and Neurology, Interdepartmental Program in Immunology, Stanford University, Stanford, 94305, California, USA

    Lawrence Steinman

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  1. Lawrence Steinman
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Correspondence to Lawrence Steinman.

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Steinman, L. Collateral damage repaired. Nature 422, 671–672 (2003). https://doi.org/10.1038/422671a

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