“My year of unraveling” is how a despairing Christy Morrill described nightmarish months when his immune system hijacked his brain.What’s called autoimmune encephalitis attacks the organ that makes us “us,” and it can appear out of the blue.Morrill went for a bike ride with friends along the California coast, stopping for lunch, and they noticed nothing wrong. Neither did Morrill until his wife asked how it went — and he’d forgotten. Morrill would get worse before he got better. “Unhinged” and “fighting to see light,” he wrote as delusions set in and holes in his memory grew.AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisementOf all the ways our immune system can run amok and damage the body instead of protecting it, autoimmune encephalitis is one of the most unfathomable. Seemingly healthy people abruptly spiral with confusion, memory loss, seizures, even psychosis.But doctors are getting better at identifying it, thanks to discoveries of a growing list of the rogue antibodies responsible that, if found in blood and spinal fluid, aid diagnosis. Every year new culprit antibodies are being uncovered, said Dr. Sam Horng, a neurologist at Mount Sinai Health System in New York who has cared for patients with multiple forms of this mysterious disease.And while treatment today involves general ways to fight the inflammation, two major clinical trials are underway aiming for more targeted therapy.Still, it’s tricky. Symptoms can be mistaken for psychiatric or other neurologic disorders, delaying proper treatment.AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisement“When someone’s having new changes in their mental status, they’re worsening and if there’s sort of like a bizarre quality to it, that’s something that kind of tips our suspicion,” Horng said. “It’s important not to miss a treatable condition.”With early diagnosis and care, some patients fully recover. Others like Morrill recover normal daily functioning but grapple with some lasting damage — in his case, lost decades of “autobiographical” memories. This 72-year-old literature major can still spout facts and figures learned long ago, and he makes new memories every day. But even family photos can’t help him recall pivotal moments in his own life.“I remember ‘Ulysses’ is published in Paris in 1922 at Sylvia Beach’s bookstore. Why do I remember that, which is of no use to me anymore, and yet I can’t remember my son’s wedding?” Morrill wonders.Inflaming the brainAdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisementEncephalitis means the brain is inflamed and symptoms can vary from mild to life-threatening. Infections are a common cause, typically requiring treatment of the underlying virus or bacteria. But when that’s ruled out, an autoimmune caus …
