Multiple neurologic deficits. Inflammatory diseases

Certain diseases do not consistently affect a single area of the nervous system and, in fact, may cause concomitant multifocal involvement. Depending on the area of the nervous system affected, these diseases may cause a wide spectrum of neurologic problems and therefore must be included in the differential diagnosis for most problems discussed previously. Diseases causing multifocal lesions should especially be suspected when there are concomitant neurologic deficits that cannot be localized to a single site. An example would be a cat with seizures and paraparesis without thoracic limb involvement, in which case separate lesions affecting the forebrain and thoracolumbar spinal cord would be suspected. Inflammatory neurologic diseases most commonly cause lesions at multiple sites and will be discussed here. These conditions frequently cause concomitant systemic disease. Additional disease categories that may cause multifocal lesions, and are somewhat more likely to result in strict neurologic disease, are discussed in Multiple Neurologic Deficits: Non-infectious Diseases (page 440).