Autoimmune Encephalitis: A Disease of the 21st Century at the Crossroads of Neurology and Psychiatry

Abstract

Autoimmune encephalitis is a group of neurological diseases characterized by brain damage by autoantibodies towards extra- or intracellular structures of the nervous system that act as antigens. The combination of neurological and mental disorders, as well as the ability to identify a specific “antigen and antibody” axis, makes these diseases extremely interesting from the standpoint of “molecular psychiatry” and the creation of new experimental models of cognitive processes, clinical diagnosis and targeted treatment. However, despite active research in this direction and a large number of specific antibodies, the diagnosis of autoimmune encephalitis is often extremely difficult and can be made only by clinical criteria. This study provides an overview of the available data on the history of discovery and study of autoimmune encephalitis, describes the methods for searching of antibodies that exist today and the further prospects for studying this group of diseases.