A cellular approach to neurological disease

This presentation is necessarily an overview of the work in our laboratories. We have chosen to study oligodendroglia and myelin first, because we have specific markers we can use, and we can focus on specific disease entities. However, the same strategy can be applied to neurons and neuronal diseases. Despite major advances in the neurosciences, many questions remain unanswered. In general there has been a predictable sequence in our progress in understanding the nature of neurological disorders. Early studies focused on a clinical description of the disease. Next the pathology was described, and attempts were made to correlate these findings with the clinical symptoms. Now that we are able to isolate some of the cells involved in specific diseases (see Table I) we can begin to investigate the normal metabolism of these cells, study their components, and follow any changes that take place under different pathological conditions. Thus, we have shown that it is possible to study and perphaps eventually provide therapy for certain disorders, such as multiple sclerosis, without knowning that delineation of events in the normal cell is an essential step in unraveling the mysteries of neurological disease.