The Role of Infectious Agents in the Etiology of Multiple Sclerosis

Multiple sclerosis (MS) is one of the most common chronic inflammatory diseases of central nervous system that causes the demyelination of the neurons. Although the main reason of this disease has been unknown yet, different factors including genetic and environmental factors and some infectious diseases can affect the etiology of MS. Methods and Materials: The present study is a review article obtained from searching in various databases such as Pubmed, Scopus, Google Scholar, Barakatkns, SID, Magiran and relevant books in this field. Various studies have shown that infections agents, especially viruses, can cause chronic neurological disorders and play an important role in the etiology of MS with unknown mechanisms. Discussion and Some indirect mechanisms proposed that infections can induce inflammatory responses in central nervous system and therefore, contribute to the etiology of MS.