Welcome to the Spring ‘26 edition of the UK MS Register newsletter. In this edition we share a very exciting recent publication and news of our 15th anniversary.

Firstly we wanted to say a big thank you to everyone who logged in and answered the spring round of questionnaires. These questionnaires had a great response and it would be brilliant if we could increase these numbers for the autumn questionnaires.

It’s Our Anniversary!

In May 2026 the UK MS Register turned 15! Originally launched in May 2011 with funding and support from the MS Society, the Register has grown significantly, and today has more participants, more clinical sites and employs a larger team than ever.

Of course this growth would not have been possible without our incredible participants – the people living with MS who choose to sign up, answer regular questionnaires, and consent to share their medical records.

As part of our anniversary celebrations we identified a group of amazing people who have answered at least six questionnaires a year every year since 2011, giving us 15 years worth of data!

There have been many achievements over the 15 years which the Register are very proud of – read our blog to hear about 15 key achievements over 15 years.

We also have a new video interview with Dr Rod Middleton available on our YouTube channel where he discusses how the Register has evolved over 15 years, and what hopes he has for the future.

New Publication: Nature Communications

Large-scale online assessment uncovers a distinct Multiple Sclerosis subtype with selective cognitive impairment

• We are pleased to share that in September 2025 a paper featuring the UK MS Register was published in Nature Communications. This paper is based on the cognition tests, or Brain Games, which were available through the Register in recent years. Researchers recruited more than 4000 participants from the Register to complete a series of online cognitive tasks. This was compared to data from people who do not have MS, who took part in the BBC’s Great British Intelligence test. Researchers could then work out which tests were able to distinguish between people with MS, and those without. Based on this data the research team created an MS-specific cognitive assessment consisting of 12 tasks. Read more on the MS Society website here.
• Many of you contributed to the Brain Games over the last few years and we would like to express our gratitude to you all for taking part. Nature Communications is a high impact factor journal, meaning it is widely read and highly influential, and so we are extremely proud to have had this paper published. Read our blog about this paper here.

We’ve reached 50k!

Not only are we marking our 15th year but we’ve also reached another incredible milestone for the Register. We’ve recently surpassed 50,000 participants – that’s around a third of the estimated total of people in the UK living with MS. It’s so important that as many people as possible sign up so that we have the most accurate picture of what life is like for people with MS here in the UK. If you have friends or family living with MS please support us by letting them know about the UK MS Register.

PPIE Group

As you may know the UK MS Register has it’s own Patient and Public Involvement and Engagement (PPIE) group who exist to ensure we are meeting the needs of our participants, and listening to the views of people with MS.

This group meet monthly online and offer their support and feedback on all manner of projects, from research proposals to website wording.

They have had input on many of the guest studies the Register has been involved in, including Cognitron, LiON and the menopause study.

Read more about the activities of the PPIE group, and some personal stories from it’s members.

If you are interested in learning more about joining the group then please email: contact@ukmsregister.org

Conferences & Events

The team have attended the following events over recent months, sharing Register research through talks and posters:

• MS Trust Conference, March – Leicestershire
• Brain Conference, March – London
• EQ5D Annual Meeting, March – Sheffield
• EMSP (European Multiple Sclerosis Platform) Conference, April – Berlin
• Greater Manchester SW and Stockport & SE Manchester MS Information Day, April – Salford
• Newly Diagnosed Day for SW Wales, April – Swansea
• ABN (Association of British Neurologists) Conference, May – Birmingham

International Nurse’s Day

On the 12th of this month it was International Nurse’s Day and we wanted to take this opportunity to highlight the amazing nurses and clinical teams we work with. Read our blog here: https://blog.msregister.org/international-nurses-day-2026/

Your Comments

We value feedback your feedback; it is only by hearing from you about what you think of the Register that we can make improvements. If you have any comments, questions or suggestions then please get in touch with us: contact@ukmsregister.org

Blogs

We couldn’t possibly fit all our activities into this newsletter. For more regular updates please visit out blog pages by following this link.

Social Media

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