How do nerve（神经） cells（细胞） work（使工作）? And so to begin to understand how nerve cells work, let's use our nerve cells. I'd like everyone to wiggle their toes（脚趾）. I'm going to wiggle my toes. What just happened? Well, what you just did is you signaled（发信号） a nerve（神经） cell（细胞） in the front of your brain, and that nerve cell sends a branch（树枝） all the way down to your spinal（ 脊骨的） cord（细绳）, where it talks to a second nerve cell, and that nerve cell sends a branch, also known as an axon, down to your toes, and your toes wiggle, something we all take for granted（授予）.

  But if you have multiple（多重的） sclerosis or MS, this can be very difficult to do, and some days, even impossible to do. And the question is why? And the answer is because nerve cells in people with MS are sick. Now, this is a sick nerve cell. How can we tell（ 告诉）? It's alone.

  Nerve cells are in our bodies working groups-- tens, hundreds, thousands, even millions-- probably millions to just wiggle our toes. Second, it's branch, known as an axon, is small. And if you look closely（紧密地）, the axon is bright. The nerve cell, it's connected to, is bright. But the connection（连接） between the two is less bright. This axon is hanging（挂） on for dear life.

  Well, here, we discovered how this happens. We discovered how MS nerve cells get sick. And then we invented medicines to prevent it. And then we fed these same nerve cells those medicines. And this is what we saw. And this still takes my breath（气息） away-- a field full of nerve（神经） cells（细胞）.

  So many nerve cells, you can't tell where one starts and one stops. Axons that are long and beautiful and communicating with other nerve cells and doing their jobs. And it is because of this discovery that we think we can stop MS in its tracks. And we've learned something so basic（基本的）, so fundamental（基本的）, about how nerve（神经） cells（细胞） work（使工作）. We think this is going to help people with other neurologic diseases, like amyotrophic, lateral（侧面的） sclerosis, or ALS. So it took me 30 years to get here.

  I have 10 minutes to tell my story. Let's get started. MS is a big problem. Almost 3 million people globally（世界上） have MS. And in this heat map, where dark red shows the highest rates of MS in the world, you can see Saskatchewan has a very high rate of multiple sclerosis. Not only one of the highest rates in Canada, but one of the highest rates in the world.

  So what does that mean? That means everyone in Saskatchewan knows somebody with MS. In fact, everyone in Saskatchewan probably knows two people with MS, including a family member and that person's best friend, who's lived down the street. So if you know anyone with MS, raise your hand. I know hundreds of people with MS. And I can tell you I've spent most of my career telling people they have MS.

  And that is a life-altering（改变） experience. So what's it like to have MS? So over time, following the blue line from left to right, people with MS get disabled（ 残疾的）. It's not a smooth（ 光滑的） road. It's bumpy. As shown by those blue columns, each one of those blue columns is an attack of neurologic dysfunction.

  And those are called relapses（复发）. And they happen randomly（随机地） through someone's life. And if I can bring your attention to the first two columns, you'll see after the first column, after a relapse, people come back to baseline, sometimes even normal. And that's called a remission. And that's where the term relapsing, remitting（宽恕）, multiple（多重的） sclerosis comes from, the most common form of MS. So what is an MS relapse?

  One day, you might have blurred（涂污） vision（视） in one eye. The next time, both legs may become numb, or even paralyzed, or you may have acute（敏锐的） bouts（一回） of pain, all leading to decreased（减少） quality of life, trouble with employment（工业）, difficulty（ 困难） with intimacy（亲密）, difficulty with mobility（ 可动性）, all the things most of us take for granted（授予）.