In contrast to the developing human cellular models, adult postmortem tissues from multiple sclerosis (MS) and healthy controls revealed that whereas mGluR5 expression in astrocytes in healthy white matter was low, a significant upregulation was observed in MS lesions, implying a phenotypic change in astrocytes in the presence of a lesion, consistent with upregulation of mGluR5 in cuprizone treated adult mice. The gene discussed is GRM5; the disease is multiple sclerosis.