Reserve is someone’s ability to tolerate age-related changes and disease-related insults to their brain without developing symptoms. How reserve contributes specifically to multiple sclerosis disease is unknown. There are two types of reserve: “Brain reserve” which is like an individual’s “hardware”, and “cognitive reserve” which is your “software”. Whether differences in someone’s DNA contribute to reserve have not been considered. To address this, we seek to understand where DNA or genetic differences play a role in brain and cognitive reserve in multiple sclerosis. Our first goal is to understand factors associated with brain and cognitive reserve in multiple sclerosis that could be used to advance treatment and care. Our second goal is to better understand how multiple genetic differences influence the volume of brain over time. This may help with identifying who with multiple sclerosis may benefit the most from therapeutics.
