Autoimmune neurology – Jakob Theorell team

The focus of the team is translational research in the area of autoimmune neurology, with a special focus on autoimmune encephalitis. Our projects range from efforts to identify clinical traits overrepresented in patients with these rare conditions, via improvements in diagnostic testing to immunocellular investigations aiming at elucidation of disease mechanisms.

Four people wearing red tops, looking at the camera and smiling.
Theorell team wearing red on World Encephalitis Day.

The autoimmune neurology team is part of the Jenny Mjösberg research group at the Center for Infectious Medicine (CIM).

About our research

The major focus of the team is on autoantibody-driven disorders that affect central nervous system functioning. These peculiar disorders tend to be antigen-specific and thus knock out the function of individual neuronal surface proteins. This means that many of the disorders show pathognomonic traits. Furthermore, the immunological mechanisms behind the different syndromes differ; patients with autoantibodies to LGI1 and CASPR2 have for example diverging HLA and tumour associations and demographics, despite the LGI1 and CASPR2 antigens being components of the same voltage-gated potassium channel complex. Thus, they are interesting both from a clinical and an immunological perspective.

Currently, the team works to establish a diagnostic platform based on live cell-based assays and to create a network of collaborative partners in science, neurology, psychiatry, clinical immunology and geriatrics in Scandinavia. Simultaneously the team is starting to delve into clinical and immunological aspects of NMDA-R, LGI1 and GAD65 autoantibody-associated disorders.  

Publications

Selected publications

Staff and contact

Group leader

All members of the group

Keywords:
Allergy and Immunology Autoimmunity Bioinformatics (Computational Biology) (applications, see 10610) Immunology in the medical area Neurology Neurology Psychiatry Psychiatry Rheumatology and Autoimmunity Show all
JT
Content reviewer:
22-03-2024