Multiple Slerosis Essay

Imagine waking up one day and not being able to walk properly or feeling numbness in your legs. You’ve just experienced one of the most common symptoms of multiple sclerosis (MS). Multiple sclerosis is a lifelong autoimmune disease typically found in young adults. Multiple sclerosis is a degenerative disorder of the myelin sheath. Loss of myelin followed by subsequent lack of neural communication and neuronal death is accepted as the primary cause of disability in MS patients (Dutta 2007). In MS, the oligodendrocytes and myelin sheaths of the central nervous system (CNS) deteriorate and are replaced by hardened scar tissue.
To understand how MS affects the nervous system, we must understand how neurons transmit messages. Neurons transmit messages through the nervous system across a small gap called the synapse. At the synapse, electrical impulses are converted into chemical impulses in order to cross the synapse. A normal functioning nervous system includes healthy myelin sheaths that allow electrical impulses to transmit quickly and efficiently along the nerve cells. A myelin sheath is a lipid sheath around a nerve fiber, formed from closely spaced spiral
Sanghera, Mendoza, Frazier 2 layers of the plasma membrane of a Schwann cell in the peripheral nervous system (PNS) or an oligodendrocyte in the central …show more content…
The immune system begins to attack myelin sheath. It identifies the myelin sheath as a foreign invader that threatens the body and must be destroyed. Damage to a myelin sheath can happen by inflammation, stroke, immune disorders, metabolic disorders, or nutritional deficiencies. The myelin sheaths are then replaced by hardened scar tissue, also known as sclerosis, which will cover multiple areas of the nerve fibers. Consequently, the ability of the myelin sheaths to allow the body to conduct electrical impulses from the brain to the rest of the body is damaged. (Multiple Sclerosis