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Autoimmune Encephalitis Leypoldt F, Wandinger K-P, Bien CG, Dalmau J. European neurological review. 2013;8(1):31-37. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4910513/ The term autoimmune encephalitis is used to describe a group of disorders characterised by symptoms of limbic and extra-limbic dysfunction occurring in association with antibodies against synaptic antigens and proteins localised on the neuronal cell surface. Since many patients respond […]

We are hearing from many of you. Your stories fill me with passion to help families with this disease and fight to figure out a way to conquer it. But fighting is exhausting as we all know. And from somewhere inside of us, we keep finding a way to another path, another treatment, another doctor […]

I recently read an article about myself in the New York Times—well it wasn’t my name or my child but it was my story. Sandra Joy Stein wrote the article titled “Becoming the Parent With the Child in the Wheelchair.” I don’t know Ms. Stein personally, but I know her life. I had a young […]

The Autoimmune Encephalitis Alliance awarded its first grant to the Autoimmune Brain Disease Program at Duke University Children’s Hospital.  Co-directors of the Program, Dr. William Gallentine, Pediatric Neurology and Dr. Heather van Mater, Pediactric Rhuematology, accepted the grant and will use the funding to advance their ground-breaking, multidisciplinary clinic and related research.  The $11,000 grant […]

On July 11, 2013, the Autoimmune Encephalitis Alliance hosted the NC Premiere of Across the Starting Line, a Short Film, and Book Reading by Susannah Cahalan, Author of Brain on Fire. The event was held in Durham, NC at the Full Frame Theater at American Tobacco Campus, a boutique theater built in collaboration with Duke […]

Our family has always been a running family. A jogging stroller lived on our porch or dining room for years. We ran when full time jobs became stressful, while Laura and Florence napped as babies, and just exercising our dog. When Florence fell ill with an unknown disease at age two, we increased our running […]

Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences and the Department of Pediatrics, January 24, 2013

Treatment and prognostic factors for long-term outcome in patients with anti-NMDA receptor encephalitis: an observational cohort study Titulaer MJ, McCracken L, et al. Lancet Neurology; London 12.2 (Feb 2013): 157-65. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23290630 Anti-NMDA receptor encephalitis is an autoimmune disorder in which the use of immunotherapy and the long-term outcome have not been defined. We aimed to […]

Dale et al Brain. 2012 Nov;135(Pt11):3453-68. https://academic.oup.com/brain/article/135/11/3453/272463 Recent reports of autoantibodies that bind to neuronal surface receptors or synaptic proteins have defined treatable forms of autoimmune encephalitis. Despite these developments, many cases of encephalitis remain unexplained. We have previously described a basal ganglia encephalitis with dominant movement and psychiatric disease, and proposed an autoimmune aetiology. […]

Central nervous system neuronal surface antibody associated syndromes: review and guidelines for recognition Zuliani et al. J Neurol Neurosurg Psychiatry. 2012 June; 83(6): 638-645. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3348613/ The concept of antibody mediated CNS disorders is relatively recent. The classical CNS paraneoplastic neurological syndromes are thought to be T cell mediated, and the onconeural antibodies merely biomarkers for […]