NEW ORLEANS – A focus of the 2016 Americas Committee for Treatment and Research in Multiple Sclerosis (ACTRIMS) Forum is the pathogenic mechanisms involved in progressive forms of MS, including the genetic and environmental underpinnings and the immunopathologic processes involved, according to ACTRIMS president, Dr. Suhayl Dhib-Jalbut.
In particular, the role of B cells in the pathogenesis of progressive disease will be addressed as recent studies targeting B lymphocytes are providing important new information about the importance of B cells in the pathogenesis of progressive MS.
In this video interview, Dr. Dhib-Jalbut, professor and chair of the department of neurology at the Rutgers Robert Wood Johnson Medical School, New Brunswick, N.J., notes that it is hypothesized that in progressive MS, there is a depletion of energy in the central nervous system. Studies of medications that can restore mitochondrial function and energy pools and perhaps have an impact on disease progression will be presented during the forum, he said.