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The new research, published in  Lancet Neurology , is a first step to identifying red flags to help doctors screen for the disease and start interventions earlier. This could point researchers in a new direction for finding the root cause of the disease. "Proving that people with multiple sclerosis have already changed their behaviour in the five years before even the earliest medical recognition of the condition is very important because it means we have to look beyond those five years to understand how it is caused," said Helen Tremlett, senior author of the study and a professor in the department of medicine at the Djavad Mowafaghian Centre for Brain Health. Multiple sclerosis is thought to be an autoimmune disease where the body attacks the protective coating, known as myelin, around brain cells. Once a person is diagnosed with multiple sclerosis, a physician will try to pinpoint the onset of the disease, sometimes known as the patient's first demyelinating even...

"There seem to be two separate conditions and pathologies involved here," says Pashtun Shahim, a doctor and researcher of neurology and physiology. He himself has met the 28 sportspeople who were the subjects of the research, the majority of whom were elite ice hockey players from Sweden (both male and female). All of them had experienced long-term problems after suffering concussion on multiple occasions, with complaints including sensitivity to noise and light, irritability, depression, difficulty concentrating and memory problems. No Plaque Formation "You can experience a lot of problems following a concussion, but these usually resolve within a few days or weeks; this group, though, experienced the problems for more than three months," Pashtun Shahim tells us. The research indicates that there is a general change in the metabolism or processing of a protein called amyloid precursor protein (APP), from which Alzheimer-related beta-amyloids are excrete...

After a head injury, the brain can show enhanced connectivity by using alternative routes between two previously connected regions of the brain that need to communicate, as well as make stronger connections, said Frank G. Hillary, associate professor of psychology, Penn State. These new connections between damaged areas are often referred to as hyperconnections, he added. "Hyperconnectivity has been called a compensatory reaction to brain injury and it's a little counterintuitive because it implies that the brain can increase its functional response when you take away physical resources," said Hillary. "If the axon -- the physical connection -- between brain areas is removed, the brain can retain that connection functionally by using alternative routes. So what we're seeing is there are all sorts of ways in which the brain can adapt and one way is to heighten the response, but the question is what does that do for you in the short term and what are the poten...