Can Stress Management Reduce Brain Lesions in MS?

Psychological stress has been associated with physiologic and immunologic alterations, which can affect the body's inflammatory response. For this multicenter, phase II trial, investigators randomized 121 participants to 24 weeks of either stress-management training (SMT) or a wait list. Follow-up was for an additional 24 weeks, and patients remained on their existing disease-modifying therapy. The SMT program included 16 individual 50-minute sessions. Participants underwent magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) at baseline and every 2 months through 48 weeks (7 scans total) and completed monthly rating scales of stressful events and perceived stress.

At 24 weeks, significantly more SMT recipients than controls were free of gadolinium-enhancing l…