Multiple Sclerosis (MS) is an inflammatory disease that mostly affects young adults. Unlike neurodegenerative diseases, the extend of cognitive deficits is not well studied nor well understood.

In a series of papers which the latest one was published in eLife , researchers at Mehdi Sanayei lab at School of Cognitive Sciences at IPM , in collaboration with Iman Adibi at Isfahan University of Medical Sciences, showed that although MS patients have relatively normal function in attention, they suffer from working memory deficits.

Furthermore, through cognitive modeling, they showd that working memory deficit in MS is similar to what was previously observed in Alzheimer’s disease, and not Parkinson's disease. Whether Alzheimer’s and MS might have similarities in their pathophysiology in affecting working memory needs further investigation.