Exercise and Cognition in Multiple Sclerosis in 2025: Forward Momentum or Going Nowhere Fast?

There is increasing interest in the study of exercise training as an approach to treat the cognitive consequences of multiple sclerosis (MS). The current paper reviews recent research on exercise training effects on cognition in MS, and provides several future directions for guiding, and perhaps optimizing, research in this area.

Overall, the newest evidence in this field is associated with substantial heterogeneity in study characteristics (i.e., sample sizes, demographic/clinical characteristics, exercise interventions, control/comparator conditions). The studies further focused on different primary outcomes, such that cognition is inconsistently included as a primary outcome. As a result, the study results were heterogeneous overall. Collectively, evidence on exercise training as an approach to improve cognition in persons with MS over the past two decades is mixed, and the efficacy or effectiveness of such an approach has not yet been established. Based on recently published studies, we believe that future research will involve stronger, better-designed RCTs that evaluate exercise, as a standalone and/or combinatory approach for improving cognition in MS, that are founded upon hypothesized mechanisms-of-action regarding adaptations in the central nervous system.