The Impact of Mesenchymal Stem Cell Therapy on Cognitive Performance in People Living with Multiple Sclerosis

In Multiple Sclerosis (MS), cognition is directly affected by neural integrity and secondary disease characteristics (anxiety, depression and fatigue). Mesenchymal stem cell therapy (MSCT) has been recently studied due to its potential for neural repair in MS. It is hypothesized that cognitive improvement will be seen after MSCT. The change in cognition is expected to be correlated with changes in secondary disease characteristics and neurophysiological measures (neural conduction time). Ten participants received MSCT. Cognition, secondary disease characteristics, and conduction time were evaluated pre- and post- (12 month) therapy. Eight participants demonstrated cognitive improvement in at least one test. Secondary disease characteristics and conduction time were not associated with cognition in our sample. In conclusion, MSCT appears to be safe with regards to cognition and does not worsen secondary disease characteristics. Future efficacy studies have the potential to show greater cognitive improvement than the current preliminary study.