PUB - Publikationen an der Universität Bielefeld

Delineation of the autoimmune encephalitides with antibodies against neural surface antigens (anti-N-Methyl-D-aspartate, anti-leucine-rich glioma-inactivated protein 1, and others), autoimmune-associated epi-lepsies (Rasmussen encephalitis, paraneo-plastic encephalitides, temporal lobe epilepsy with antibodies against glutamic acid decar-boxylase), and encephalomyelitides with glial antibodies (neuromyelitis optica spectrum disorder, myelin oligodendrocyte glycopro-tein antibody disease) has been a major advance in neurology. But how do these inflammatory diseases "work"? What kind of interaction between elements of the im-mune system and brain cells leads to these conditions? The only direct way of answer-ing these questions is to investigate affect-ed brain tissue by neuropathological tech-niques. They provide morphological and, in part, temporal information on the elements and localization of the disease process. Mo-lecular techniques broaden and support these data. Brain tissue becomes available through autopsies and brain biopsies, ob-tained for diagnostic or therapeutic inter-ventions. The limitations of neuropatho-logical pathogenic research are discussed. Finally, representative neuropathological findings in autoimmune encephalitides and related conditions are summarized.