title: Psychopathology in multiple sclerosis: diagnosis, prevalence and treatment.
abstract: Multiple sclerosis (MS) is a chronic inflammatory disorder of the central nervous system. Demyelinization of nerve fibres not only affects the motor and sensory systems functionally, but may also cause psychopathological signs and symptoms. In addition to the psychiatric manifestations of MS, many patients have reactive psychological problems that are often hard to distinguish from the 'organic' causation of psychopathology. In any event, psychiatric comorbidity in MS deserves greater clinical attention than has been previously paid, because the presence of psychopathology may have deleterious effects on the disease process and impair coping with disability.
authors.affiliation: Department of Pharmacology and Neuroscience, Institute for Aging and Alzheimer's Disease Research, Center FOR HER (Focused On Resources for her Health, Education and Research), University of North Texas Health Science Center, Fort Worth, TX, USA jsimpkin@hsc.unt.edu.
authors.forename: Ida S
authors.initials: IS
authors.lastname: Haussleiter
authors.forename: Martin
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Brüne
authors.forename: Georg
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Juckel