Research Paper Title

A prospective three-year follow-up study on the clinical significance of anti-neuronal antibodies in acute psychiatric disorders.

Background

The clinical significance of anti-neuronal antibodies for psychiatric disorders is controversial.

The researchers investigated if a positive anti-neuronal antibody status at admission to acute psychiatric inpatient care was associated with a more severe neuropsychiatric phenotype and more frequent abnormalities during clinical work-up three years later.

Methods

Patients admitted to acute psychiatric inpatient care who tested positive for N-methyl-D-aspartate receptor (NMDAR), contactin-associated protein 2 (CASPR2) and/or glutamic acid decarboxylase 65 (GAD65) antibodies (n = 24) were age – and sex matched with antibody-negative patients (1:2) from the same cohort (n = 48).

All patients were invited to follow-up including psychometric testing (e.g. Symptom Checklist-90-Revised), serum and cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) sampling, EEG and 3 T brain MRI.

Twelve antibody-positive (ab+) and 26 antibody-negative (ab-) patients consented to follow-up.

Results

Ab+ patients had more severe symptoms of depression (p = 0.03), psychoticism (p = 0.04) and agitation (p = 0.001) compared to ab- patients.

There were no differences in CSF analysis (n = 6 ab+/12 ab-), EEG (n = 7 ab+/19 ab-) or brain MRI (n = 7 ab+/17 ab-) between the groups.

Conclusions

In conclusion, anti-neuronal ab+ status during index admission was associated with more severe symptoms of depression, psychoticism and agitation at three-year follow-up.

This supports the hypothesis that anti-neuronal antibodies may be of clinical significance in a subgroup of psychiatric patients.

Reference

Schou, M.B., Sæther, S.G., Drange, O.K., Brenner, E., Crespi, J., Eikenes, L., Mykland, M.S., Pintzka, C., Håberg, A.K., Sand, T., Vaaler, A. & Kondziella, D. (2019) A prospective three-year follow-up study on the clinical significance of anti-neuronal antibodies in acute psychiatric disorders. Scientific Reports. 10(1):35. doi: 10.1038/s41598-019-56934-6.