New UB-IDIBAPS study on the origins of autoimmune psychosis

Recerca Anti-NMDAR encephalitis is an autoimmune brain illness that is often mistaken by a psychiatric disorder since it causes psychoses and other behaviour alterations. Despite having these similarities, the illness does not respond to common antipsychotic treatments. A new study by the University of Barcelona and the August Pi i Sunyer Biomedical Research Institute (IDIBAPS) shows these symptoms would be caused by alterations in the quantity of dopaminergic receptors D1R and D2R in the hippocampal area of the brain. These results, published in the journal Annals of Neurology , shed light on the biological base of psychotic symptoms in this and other autoimmune psychoses and they could ease the development of new drugs in the future. The study results from the bachelor's degree final project of the former student of the Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences of the UB Marc Carceles-Cordon and it is co-led by Josep Dalmau, ICREA professor, director of the Program on Clinical and Experimental Neuroimmunology at IDIBAPS-Hospital Clínic and UB, and lecturer of Neurology at the University of Pennsylvania (Philadelphia, United States) and Jesús Planagumà, researcher at IDIBAPS. Other participants in the study are the UB and IDIBAPS researchers Francesco Mannara, Esther Aguilar and Aida Castellanos. Schizophrenia-like symptoms The objective of the study was to improve the understanding of the molecular origins of the psychotic symptoms in anti-NMDAR encephalitis, the most representative example for autoimmune encephalitis.