MS Research Roundup: September 29, 2014

MS Research Roundup collects items of interest to multiple sclerosis researchers from around the Web. Send us your tips: tips@msdiscovery.org.

Catching Z’s

In a widely circulated press release, researchers at the University of California, Davis, reported earlier this month that sleep disorders may be widely underdiagnosed in people with multiple sclerosis. The study of more than 2,300 patients—published in the Journal of Clinical Sleep Medicine—found one or more sleep disorders in over 70% of the study participants. These disorders were almost evenly distributed among sleep apnea, moderate to severe insomnia, and restless leg syndrome. Many of the disorders were undiagnosed and untreated. Since fatigue is such a ubiquitous and frustrating symptom of MS, the researchers noted, identifying and treating sleep disorders may be important to reducing the severity of fatigue in patients. (UC Davis, CBS News, Journal of Clinical Sleep Medicine)

Bad Actors Impersonate Good Drug Leads

“Academic researchers, drawn into drug discovery without appropriate guidance, are doing muddled science. When biologists identify a protein that contributes to disease, they hunt for chemical compounds that bind to the protein and affect its activity. A typical assay screens many thousands of chemicals. ‘Hits’ become tools for studying the disease, as well as starting points in the hunt for treatments.” So begins a strongly worded warning from a pair of biomedical chemists in last week’s issue of Nature, who say they learned the hard way that many hits in drug screens are reactive chemicals that give false readouts. Co-author Jonathan Baell, Ph.D., of Monash University in Melbourne, Australia, named them PAINS (pan-assay interference compounds). The bad actors are so convincing that many go through patenting and assessment in animals before failure. Commercial suppliers offer these assay-wreckers as proven protein inhibitors to unwitting researchers. Years of biomedical research and millions of dollars in wasted research could be saved by vigilance against PAINS, which masquerade as potential drugs, caution Baell and Michael Walters, Ph.D., of the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis, who organized a symposium at a recent chemistry meeting about these troublemakers. “Publications falsely revalidate molecules as good drug leads and feed Sisyphean cycles of ‘screen, publish, flounder,’ ” write Baell and Walters, who single out resveratrol, among others. The article includes several practical solutions. Colorfully chilling illustrations from New Yorker cartoonist Roz Chast accompany the dire prose and may entice scientists to print and post this in their labs. (Chemical & Engineering News, Nature, Practical Fragments blog)

The Life of Myelin

Last year, a multidisciplinary team at Stanford developed a way to compare MRI scans quantitatively between labs and showed that the new technique may have potential to measure myelin loss and recovery in people with MS. This year, the team used the technique to develop a normal curve for white matter levels throughout life. They imaged 24 regions within the brains of 102 healthy people ages 7 to 85. Overall, they found a rainbow-shaped curve, with a gradual increase in white matter that peaks between ages 30 and 50 and then decreases. But some brain regions stayed relatively stable, while others had steep arches and sharp falls. “The group has already shown that they can identify people with multiple sclerosis (MS) as falling outside the normal curve,” the Stanford News Office reported. “People with MS develop what are known as lesions—regions in the brain or spinal cord where myelin is missing. In this paper, the team showed that they could identify people with MS as being off the normal curve throughout regions of the brain, including places where there are no visible lesions. This could provide an alternate method of monitoring and diagnosing MS, they say.” The results are published in the September 17, 2014, Nature Communications. On Twitter, Timothy Verstynen (@tdverstynen) took issue with the news office claim that it was the first study to show how brain tissue changes throughout life. “Maybe the coolest approach, but definitely not the first,” he tweeted. (Stanford News, Stanford Scope Blog)

Namaste for MS

The seemingly infinite list of benefits of yoga just got a little longer: New research from Rutgers University in New Jersey suggests that yoga may improve an array of multiple sclerosis symptoms. In a pilot study of 14 women, researchers had a group of patients undergo an 8-week yoga training program, at the end of which they reported improvements to vision, bladder control, balance, and cognition. The researchers also found benefits in fatigue, pain, and quality of life. It might sound a little far-fetched, but there is evidence that yoga leads to measurable changes in the brain. The abstract from the team’s presentation at a meeting on integrative medicine and health was published in the May 2014 Journal of Alternative and Complementary Medicine. The researchers say that they hope to conduct a randomized, controlled trial soon. (Rutgers University, Journal of Alternative and Complementary Medicine, MS News Today, Scientific American, Healthline News)

Your Brain on Toast

What happens in the brains of people who see the face of Jesus in a piece of toast? The scientists who asked—and answered—this question took home an Ig Nobel award earlier this month. The annual awards are given every September on a Harvard stage, only weeks before the Swedish Nobel announcements. The Ig Nobels “honor achievements that first make people laugh and then make them think.” This year, the shifting prize categories included neuroscience, won by a team from China and Canada for their face-processing study. Like the other winners who attended, co-author Kang Lee, Ph.D., came at his own expense to accept congratulations from real Nobel laureates who participated in the gala ceremony. “I like to make jokes, and I can take a joke,” Kang confided to blogger Cristine Russell, who described the event as “Monty Python on science steroids.” New this year for data junkies (and who isn’t?) is a sortable database of Ig Nobel Prize Winners. Find your own strange correlations (but not necessarily causations), thanks to Silk, a platform for visualizing and sharing data. (Improbable Research, Los Angeles Times, Scientific American blogs)

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