Whilst looking for molecules that can influence how proteins are made, researchers found that some of these molecules seemed to converge on a pathway that makes allopregnanlone.
Allopregnanlone modulates certain chemicals in the brain that control how nerve impulses fire. Therefore, there are many potentials for a drug that mimics this and also potential side-effects (such as cognitive behaviours). The researchers found that there was less Allopregnanlone in the brains of MSers and also in the animal MS models. The researchers then gave allopregnanlone to mice with MS-like disease.
Viewing the data it looks like there is some immunomodulating effect of the drug and so the claims of benefit on sparing of myelin and nerve injury are obvious, because if the damaging immune response does not arrive to cause damage, it is obvious that there will not be any damage. (Remember we want more than just this effect) Therefore, they did not show evidence that this drug actually causes nerve repair in the animals. In my opinion the experiment was not designed so that it could show this. Also it looks like the drug did not completely prevent disease from occuring, so again this has not yet been shown to be a cure. So the claims in paper were over-hyped and need more experiments are needed to show this.
However, on the real positive side, the researchers provided evidence that this drug could influence the growth and maturation of cells that make myelin. This linked with evidence from other animals studies that allopregnanlone may slow the accumulation of nerve damage, suggests that there may be real mileage in investigating this pathway, for progressive MSers, so this aspect makes it more exciting and it is promise for the future.However, in the animal studies this drug is not even in pill form and so it will be
many years, before there is a drug-based on this would reach MSers.