Patchy areas of lost sensation can be seen in which disease?

• A. Multiple Sclerosis
• B. Parkinson's Disease
• C. Myasthenia Gravis
• D. Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis

Answer: (A)

Patchy areas of lost sensation point to a process that creates multiple, discrete lesions in the central nervous system, disrupting sensory pathways in several places. Multiple sclerosis does exactly this: an autoimmune attack on CNS myelin leads to demyelinating plaques scattered in the brain and spinal cord. Because these plaques can occur at different times and in different locations, you get focal, irregular sensory deficits—numbness, tingling, or altered sensation in multiple, non-contiguous areas rather than a single, uniform loss.

In contrast, Parkinson’s disease mainly disrupts motor circuits and doesn’t typically cause focal sensory loss. Myasthenia gravis presents with fluctuating muscle weakness without sensory impairment. Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis primarily affects motor neurons and sensory symptoms are not a defining feature. So the pattern of patchy sensory loss is most characteristic of multiple sclerosis.