A recent study published in Neurology indicates brain lesions associated with increased multiple sclerosis activity appear in patients more often between the months of March and August. Scientists at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston and Washington University in St. Louis compared 939 magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scans of 44 people with untreated MS, taken from 1991 to 1993, to weather data from the same time period.
At the end of the year, 310 new lesions that cause MS symptoms were found in 31 patients. No new lesions were found in 13 participants in the study.
Researchers found a strong correlation between the new T2 activity and regional climate data. The formation of brain lesions in people suffering from this disease increases two to three times between March and August. The rest of the months had fewer patients developing brain lesions, indicating that the disease’s intensity rose in the summer months, and appeared to be linked to solar radiation as well as temperature.
Anne Cross, a neurologist at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis wrote in an editorial on the study that scientists trying to set up studies examining multiple sclerosis will now have to consider seasonal variability. Cross added that the research could ultimately lead to “important clues regarding the mechanisms of disease progression in MS.”
