A backdoor lets the immune system monitor the brain
As somebody who has a somewhat strange form of Multiple Sclerosis wherein almost all of the damage is in my so-called "water channel" nerves located in my optic nerves and around my brain stem, the observation that pathogens get "swept" into the area of my CNS where most of my lesions occur is very interesting. I've been tested multiple times for neuromyelitis optica, but that's come back negative each time, so it's still officially diagnosed as MS. It's just that my white matter has been completely untouched for the 23 years I've had symptoms, which is really unusual.<p>Interferon beta worked really well for me, and now Ocrelizumab is doing even better.<p>I'm convinced that what we call "Multiple Sclerosis" today is actually a collection of distinct conditions with largely orthogonal causes, and just about the best we can do in absence of a more thorough understanding of the issues is nuke all the adolescent B-lymphocytes (which is what Ocrelizumab does).