Filipe Palavra, Flávio Reis and Luís Almeida
Multiple sclerosis (MS) is a chronic inflammatory demyelinating disease of the central nervous system with presumed autoimmune etiology. Within the last years an important success has been achieved in understanding the pathophysiology of the disease and in making available effective therapeutic agents able to change the natural course of the disorder, particularly of its relapsing-remitting form. More recently, the advances made in understanding the biology of remyelination in MS opened a wide window of opportunity to design innovative therapeutic strategies that could really have an impact in reducing progressive accumulation of disability in MS and actually function as neuroprotectors and neurorregenerators. Here we provide an overview of the key target pathways and mechanisms that were identified in this field and that can provide smart targets for future pharmacological intervention.