It is now well established that the burden of MS extends far beyond the purely neurological problems to include mental health.
Key points
- Many patients with MS experience both anxiety and depression.
- Other emotional and behavioural changes associated with MS include cognitive changes, apathy, inappropriate laughing and crying, euphoria, mania and bipolar disorder.
- Physical symptoms like fatigue, sleep disturbances, concentration difficulties, numbness, tingling and dizziness may occur both in MS and in anxiety states, complicating diagnosis.
- Unless severe anxiety symptoms are formally diagnosed as an anxiety disorder, individuals miss out on targeted treatments.
- There is growing evidence that MS-related emotional changes are not necessarily a psychological consequence of living with a disability.
- They may have a biological origin related to structural damage in the brain, caused by the MS disease process.
- Brain imaging techniques that measure activity reveal how these brain networks function in real time.
- Emotional changes sometimes occur as a side effect of medications used in the management of MS, including steroids used to treat MS relapses..
Background and introduction
Multiple sclerosis (MS) is a chronic, inflammatory and neurodegenerative disease of the central nervous system (CNS) that is typically defined by its physical manifestations, such as motor weakness, sensory disturbances and fatigue. However, the burden of MS extends far beyond the purely neurological problems to include cognitive changes and mental health disorders such as anxiety, depression, apathy, mania and uncontrolled laughter and crying.
Anxiety and depression in people with MS
Among the most prevalent mental health problems in MS is anxiety, a condition that for many years was overshadowed by the clinical and research focus on depression. Anxiety is not a secondary issue but a core component of the disease experience for many people with MS. Anxiety and depression in MS are closely related, with many patients experiencing both simultaneously. Indeed, the presence of depression in people with MS is a strong predictor of the future development of anxiety, and vice versa. Both conditions share common underlying psychological risk factors such as avoidant coping styles and low optimism as well as unhealthy behaviours like smoking or lack of exercise.
Many large-scale studies have shown that anxiety is more prevalent in the MS population than in the general population. Two meta-analyses published in 2017 and 2023 assessed more than 50 published studies; based on pooled results, they estimated that 22% and 36%, respectively, of people with MS experienced anxiety.1,2 The prevalence rates for depressive disorders in people with MS are about 20−30%. Further research, utilising the UK MS Register, suggests that more than half (54%) of the 4000 patients recorded in the database have experienced clinically significant anxiety and 47% have experienced depression.3
The proportions of people with different levels of anxiety (normal, mild, moderate or severe) and who have a depression score of 8 or above (N = 1961). Data from UK MS Register.3
The proportions of people with different levels of depression (normal, mild, moderate or severe) and who have an anxiety score of 8 or above (N = 2268). Data from UK MS Register.3
By contrast, the lifetime prevalence of any anxiety disorder in the general population in the USA is around 29% (though the prevalence at a specific point in time is lower). Anxiety is also significantly more prevalent in MS than in many other chronic neurological conditions, suggesting a relationship that may be specific to the pathophysiology or lived experience of MS.
Psychiatric symptoms versus psychiatric disorders
A critical nuance in understanding the epidemiology of anxiety in MS lies in the distinction between clinically significant anxiety symptoms and formally diagnosed anxiety disorders. The two are related but not interchangeable, and the disparity between their prevalence rates reveals a crucial aspect of the clinical challenge. The 2017 meta-analysis that found a 22% prevalence for anxiety disorders also found a substantially higher (34%) prevalence of clinically significant anxiety symptoms. This discrepancy indicates that for every ten patients who meet the formal diagnostic criteria for a specific anxiety disorder, such as generalised anxiety disorder (GAD) or panic disorder, there are approximately 15 patients who experience a level of anxiety that is severe enough to cause distress and impair functioning but is not formally identified and diagnosed in a clinical setting. The result is that these individuals miss out on targeted interventions such as specific psychotherapies or drug treatment that they might otherwise receive.
This large population of symptomatic but undiagnosed individuals may exist for several reasons. First, there is considerable symptom overlap between anxiety and MS itself. Physical symptoms like fatigue, sleep disturbances, concentration difficulties, numbness, tingling and dizziness can be manifestations of either MS or an anxiety state, creating a diagnostic challenge for clinicians and confusion for people with MS. Second, both patients and clinicians may view anxiety as an ’understandable’ or ’normal’ psychological reaction to living with a chronic, unpredictable illness, rather than as a distinct, treatable clinical entity. Finally, the historical research emphasis on depression may have led to less routine screening for anxiety in clinical practice. As an MSologist, it is also essential to differentiate formal depressive disorders from clinically significant depressive symptoms, which are much commoner than disorders.
Among those who do meet the criteria for a formal disorder, GAD appears to be the most prevalent, followed by panic disorder and obsessive-compulsive disorder. Recognising the full spectrum of anxiety, from subclinical symptoms to formal disorders, is essential for developing effective screening protocols and ensuring that all people with MS experiencing anxiety receive appropriate care (see article on management of mental ill-health in MS).
Other emotional and behavioural changes
MS impairs neuropsychiatric function (the interplay between neurological and psychological functioning) in a similar manner to its effects on other neurological functions. Living with MS can result in personality changes and subsequent relationship problems.
Cognitive changes
Cognitive impairment (i.e. dysfunction), particularly slowed information processing speed, is a common, well-documented and debilitating feature of MS. Anxiety has a demonstrably detrimental effect on cognitive domains that are often already compromised in MS, such as attention and executive functions.
Apathy
Apathy, characterised by profound loss of interest, blunted affect and reduced motivation, is also common in MS, particularly advanced MS. It is often misdiagnosed as depression. Apathy is not merely a component of low mood but is linked to executive dysfunction. Predictors identified include depressive symptoms, poor global quality of life, and poor attention and information processing speeds, probably due to MS lesions in the frontal lobe.
Inappropriate laughing and crying
Pathological laughing and crying, also known as pseudobulbar affect (PBA), are common but under-recognised and undertreated symptoms of MS that can be highly distressing and embarrassing for the patient and their relatives. The sudden, involuntary and explosive expressions of laughter or crying characteristic of PBA are often disproportionate or unrelated to the individual’s underlying emotional state.PBA is also associated with cognitive and mood problems, though the sudden and disproportionate emotional reactivity differentiates it from depression. The clinical presentation is due to frontal lobe or brainstem damage resulting from MS, which disrupts motor control pathways for emotional expression.
Rare affective changes
Euphoria and mania are relatively uncommon in people with MS but are often triggered by high-dose steroids used to treat MS relapses.
Bipolar disorder is significantly more common in people with MS than in the general population; please see the separate post/chapter on this. The diagnosis must be made and treated by psychiatrists and involves lifelong therapy.
The biological basis of mental illness in MS
MS-related emotional and mood changes are not necessarily a consequence of disability; they are often intrinsic to the MS disease process. This was recognised by the French neurologist Charcot, who, in 1877, noted pathological laughing, weeping, euphoria and depression in his patients who had MS.
Anxiety as a manifestation of MS pathology
While the psychological stress of living with a chronic illness contributes to anxiety in MS, there is growing evidence that anxiety is not solely a reactive or psychological phenomenon. The same autoimmune attack that damages myelin and axons, leading to physical disability, also targets and disrupts the complex neural circuits responsible for mood regulation, threat perception and emotional processing.
Neuroinflammation and demyelination (damage to nerve insulation) are directly implicated in the development of anxiety and other psychiatric disorders. MS lesions are not confined to areas of the brain responsible for motor and sensory function but also occur within the networks that govern emotion and mood.
Structural and functional brain changes
Research has shown that people with MS can develop gradual grey matter loss in brain regions involved in emotion and motivation, particularly the limbic system and the basal ganglia. The limbic system includes the hippocampus, amygdala and cingulate cortex, and it plays a central role in processing emotions. Changes in the shape of the hippocampus have also been observed.
Primary components of the limbic system. Modified from Encyclopaedia Britannica Inc.
These structural changes are thought to contribute to the development of mood and anxiety problems in MS. When MS-related inflammation, demyelination (damage to nerve insulation) or atrophy affects these areas, the brain’s ability to regulate fear and emotional responses can be disrupted. This creates a biological vulnerability to anxiety. From a structural perspective, therefore, anxiety in MS can be viewed as a direct consequence of neurological damage, in the same way that damage to the optic nerve causes visual impairment, or damage to the spinal cord leads to motor weakness.
In people with MS, depressive symptoms are consistently correlated with the volume of lesions in the brain and the degree of damage to connections between the cortex and subcortex. Neuroimaging studies show an association between depression and damage in the frontal and temporal areas of the cortex. In contrast, PBA is associated with lesions in the brainstem.
Brain imaging techniques that measure activity, such as functional MRI (fMRI), help to explain how these structural changes translate into anxiety symptoms. Rather than only showing where structural damage exists, fMRI studies reveal how brain networks function in real time. One key process identified in anxious people with MS is ‘fear overgeneralisation’. This occurs when the brain reacts to safe or neutral situations as if they were dangerous. For example, an individual learns to associate a specific signal (e.g. a picture of a circle) with a negative outcome (e.g. a mild electric shock). Anxious individuals tend to ’overgeneralise’ this fear, responding with fear to a similar but harmless signal (e.g. an oval), thus expanding their perception of danger in everyday life.
fMRI studies show that this process mainly involves the hippocampus (which is responsible for comparing incoming new experiences with ‘learned’ memories of danger) and the anterior insula (which plays a key role in generating the physical and emotional feeling of fear). In MS patients with anxiety, the physical pathways connecting these two regions are often disrupted, so that accurate information from the hippocampus is less effectively communicated to the anterior insula. As a result, the anterior insula may generate strong fear responses even when a situation is only mildly threatening or even safe.
fMRI studies have also revealed that many MS patients exhibit greater brain responses or increased recruitment of key emotional regions (e.g. prefrontal cortex and amygdala) compared to healthy controls. This likely reflects compensatory mechanisms the brain deploys to limit the clinical expression of emotional symptoms. The damaged MS brain tries to cope.
Neurological versus psychological causes
MS can trigger primary psychopathology as a result of demyelination and damage to specific functional circuits within the brain, as described above. It can be challenging to differentiate primary organic issues from reactive psychological problems, which is why people with MS may be referred for psychiatric assessments.
I have, however, also seen patients in whom the initial symptoms were psychiatric, e.g. depression or (rarely) mania, but who were later found to have MS. The link between MS-related CNS damage and emotional symptoms is based on lesion location and lesion burden. For example, MS patients with lesions affecting the functional parts of the brain (rather than the connecting structures) exhibit a higher burden of emotional symptoms than those with lesions confined to the spinal cord. Our emotions are part of brain function in a similar way to motor function. Therefore, it is not surprising that MS impacts emotions.
Lesion location and emotional symptoms
The evidence for a direct correlation between lesion location and anxiety is inconsistent. Some researchers suggest that, unlike depression, anxiety in MS may be driven more by psychosocial pressures and the psychological reaction to the illness rather than by focal brain damage. This discrepancy does not necessarily invalidate the biological basis of anxiety in MS. It may be that anxiety is related to more diffuse or subtle pathological changes, such as microstructural damage in white matter tracts or widespread neuroinflammation, that are not easily captured by conventional MRI lesion analysis. It is also possible that the broad distribution of the brain’s anxiety circuits means that damage to any number of different locations could produce a similar clinical outcome, making it difficult to pinpoint a single ’anxiety-causing’ lesion location.
Other contributing factors
Emotional changes may occur as a side effect of medications used in the management of MS, including certain disease-modifying therapies. People with MS are also susceptible to the effects of the menopause, seasonal affective disorder and comorbidities associated with depression and anxiety, such as alcohol and other substance misuse disorders. It is advisable, therefore, to have a complete assessment before having a mood disorder labelled as being due to MS.
Anxiety in MS may also be caused by high-dose corticosteroids, which are the standard treatment for MS relapses. Steroids have significant neuropsychiatric side effects, including anxiety, mania, insomnia and psychosis. For someone with MS already dealing with the stress of a relapse, the addition of steroid-induced anxiety can be particularly distressing.
‘Prodromal’ MS and psychiatric symptoms
Psychiatric comorbidities, such as anxiety and depression, have historically been viewed as consequences that follow the diagnosis of MS. Recent research, however, points to the existence of an ‘MS prodrome’, during which anxiety and depression occur years before the first classical neurological event.4 Increased rates of anxiety are a significant feature of this prodromal phase, suggesting that anxiety and/or depression may be early signs of MS, not merely a consequence. This body of recent research supports the idea that psychiatric symptoms in MS have a biological origin. This is most likely driven by the same low-level, diffuse neuroinflammatory and neurodegenerative processes that are smouldering away in the CNS long before the first eloquent MS lesion.
References
- Boeschoten, RE et al. Prevalence of depression and anxiety in multiple sclerosis: A systematic review and meta-analysis. J Neurol Sci 2017;372:331−341.
- Zhang X et al. The prevalence and risk factors of anxiety in multiple sclerosis: A systematic review and meta-analysis. Front Neurosci 2023;17:1120541.
- Jones KH, et al. A large-scale study of anxiety and depression in people with multiple sclerosis: a survey via the web portal of the UK MS Register. PLoS ONE 2012;7:e41910.
- Ruiz-Algueró, M et al. Health care use before multiple sclerosis symptom onset. JAMA Netw Open 2025;8:e2524635.
