One thing this blog is telling us is that it scientists have a new tool to see what exactly is happening during demyelination. Developed at Purdue University and called "coherent anti-Stokes Raman scattering" or CARS, it is uses overlapping laser beams to allow scientists to examine the process of demyelination in mice in the laboratory on a molecular level.
In the lab, using experimental methods to cause demyelination in mice, the basic steps to demyelination are: 1) There is a release of calcium ions into the myelin, 2) which then activates two enzymes (calpain and cytosolic phospholipase A2), and 3) the enzymes degrade the fatty molecules that make up the myelin.
The last sentence of the press release from Purdue about the research was probably the most exciting: "Future work will include a collaboration with researchers at Northwestern University to study how to regrow the myelin sheath in animals."
