More on the long history of microbleeds and MS discussed at #ISNVD 2016. Dr. Roy Swank noted blood vessel breakdown, as evidenced by what he called, "capillary fragility" on the limbs of his MS patients during their relapses, manifesting as blood spots called petechiae. He saw hypercoagulation in their serum, too. Dr. Swank knew it mattered. In 1958, he saw what I was seeing on Jeff's legs in 2007. I wondered, if this was happening on MS patients limbs, it could be happening in the brain. Today we have the science of endothelial dysfunction and the coagulation cascade, and with high powered MRI, we can see these spots in brain tissue as well.

From Rindfliesch's discovery of the central vessel in the MS lesion in 1863, to Dr. Paolo Zamboni's discovery of Chronic Cerebrospinal Venous Insufficiency. 150 years of MS research on blood flow and perfusion of the central nervous system. Because the heart and the brain are connected.