Tom Pollak
Doctor researching autoimmune causes of psychiatric illness. Psychiatry. Neurology. Immunology. South Asia. Food. Sorry, I can't give medical advice online.
Last synced from Twitter 14m ago
IRAK4 Deficiency Presenting with Anti-NMDAR Encephalitis and HHV6 Reactivation
IRAK4 deficiency is an inborn error of immunity predisposing patients to invasive pyogenic infections. Currently, there is no established simple assay that enables precise characterization of IRAK4 mutant alleles in isolation....
Decoding a Disorder at the Interface of Mind and Brain
A mysterious condition once dismissed as hysteria is challenging the divide between neurology and psychiatry
Hypnosis Experts Cast Doubt on Famous Psychological Experiments
Suggestibility may explain why people “feel” vicarious pain or sensation in a fake hand
Cognitive deficits in people who have recovered from COVID-19 relative to controls: An N=84,285 online study
Case studies have revealed neurological problems in severely affected COVID-19 patients. However, there is little information regarding the nature and broader prevalence of cognitive problems post-infection or across the full spread of severity. We...
Recognising and explaining functional neurological disorder
### What you need to know
Functional disorders are conditions whose origin arises primarily from a disorder of nervous system functioning rather than clearly identifiable pathophysiological disease—such as irritable bowel syndrome, fibromyalgia,...
A multimodal approach to studying the relationship between peripheral glutathione, brain glutamate, and cognition in health and in schizophrenia
Involvement of oxidative stress in the pathophysiology of schizophrenia (SZ) is suggested by studies of peripheral tissue. Nonetheless, it is unclear how such biological changes are linked to relevant, pathological neurochemistry, and brain...
Muddying the waters? A false positive case of autoimmune psychosis - Sarangan Ketheesan, Georgia Bertram, Robert Adam, Anne Stark, James G Scott, 2020
Objective: To discuss challenges with the diagnosis of autoimmune psychosis (AP) in people with chronic psychotic disorders. Method: We present a case of a 23-y...
Tom Pollak
Really interesting case study of an apparently false positive NMDAR ab result in CSF - of a patient with chronic (5 yrs) psychosis, serum abs and equivocal EEG. Not sure I can think of many cases where a CSF NMDAR ab was felt not to be pathogenic...
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12 Steaming Hot Pots to Dive Into in London
From Sichuan to Cantonese, discover broths heady with ma la, bone marrow, and blood, ready for dunking rare beef, squid, fish balls, tofu, and more
Brainstem alterations contribute to catatonia in schizophrenia spectrum disorders - PubMed
Catatonia is a severe psychomotor syndrome that frequently occurs in patients with schizophrenia spectrum disorders (SSD). Accumulating neuroimaging evidence suggests orbitofrontal, frontoparietal and cerebellar network dysfunction in catatonia....
Neuronal autoantibodies associated with cognitive impairment in melanoma patients
Cancer-related cognitive impairment is an important complication in cancer patients,
yet the underlying mechanisms remain unknown. Over the last decade, the field of paraneoplastic
neurological syndromes has been dramatically changed by the...
Spontaneous serum autoantibody fluctuations: To be or not to be
Tom Pollak
Neuronal antibody status fluctuated over time, w some subjects developing new abs and some 'losing' theirs. This has been observed by Hannelore Ehrenreich's group and is discussed in an accompanying editorial on our paper by Ehrenreich and @SteixnerAgnes
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Clinical, cognitive and neuroanatomical associations of serum NMDAR autoantibodies in people at clinical high risk for psychosis
Serum neuronal autoantibodies, such as those to the NMDA receptor (NMDAR), are detectable in a subgroup of patients with psychotic disorders. It is not known if they are present before the onset of psychosis or whether they are associated with...
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Tom Pollak
JUST PUBLISHED! Our new paper in Molecular Psychiatry. Using multiple assays we searched for serum antibodies to neuronal antigens in young people at clinical high risk for psychosis and asked whether they had any clinical or prognostic significance.
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Standing on the shoulders of giants: 100 years of neurology and epidemic infections
One hundred years ago, neurologists were faced with a surge of cases of uncertain cause manifesting a protean array of symptoms. Through careful semiological description, pattern recognition and histopathological analysis, von Economo and others...
Investigating how electroencephalogram measures associate with delirium: A systematic review
Delirium is a common neurocognitive disorder in hospital settings, characterised by fluctuating impairments in attention and arousal following an acut…
CHARLES BONNET SYNDROME PATIENT INFORMATION EVENT
An event to mark 5 years since the launch of Esme’s Umbrella
and three hundred years since the birth of Charles Bonnet
Neuropsychiatric complications of covid-19
From acute delirium to long term fatigue, covid-19 has serious neuropsychiatric effects
Viral infections of the respiratory tract can have multisystemic effects, including on the central nervous system (CNS), and thus may precipitate a spectrum of...
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Tom Pollak
Our editorial on neuropsychiatric complications of COVID-19 just published in @bmj_latest - from @mattbutlerpsych with @Tim_R_Nicholson @allyrooney @BenedictNeuro
touching on acute manifestations both common and rare, through to #LongCovid
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Neurology Minute: Functional neurologic disorders, pt. 6
In the sixth part of an extended series with interviewer Dr. David Lapides, Dr. Jon Stone discusses how to discuss FND diagnosis with patients in clinic.