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Basic Immunology Others

Narcolepsy: welcome to neuroimmunology!

A recent report in Science Traslational Medicine (1) has deserved a lot of attention by mainstream media. Headlines referred to it as the confirmation that narcolepsy is an autoimmune disease. Narcolepsy is an interesting disease both clinically (sleep attacks, cataplexy, sleep paralysis, visual hallucinations during early sleep and awakening…) and pathophysiologically. Current knowledge points at […]

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Basic Immunology Multiple Sclerosis

KIR4.1 antibodies: A revolution in multiple sclerosis

This week we had the opportunity to read a paper in the New England Journal of Medicine, describing, in my opinion, a breakthrough finding in MS. It’s published by Srivastava and coworkers, from the University of Munich. It describes the presence of antibodies against the KIR4.1 potassium channel in almost 50% of MS patients. Maybe […]

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Basic Immunology Multiple Sclerosis

Does multiple sclerosis start from the gut?

MS scientific literature is fascinating. Few neurological (and non-neurological) diseases can compete in number of papers, impact factor and mainstream media attention. However many research projects use classical animal models (experimental allergic encephalmyelitis, EAE) and those animal models have been an enormous source of erroneous extrapolations to MS pathogenesis. Many times the EAE model has […]