[Antineuronal antibodies and neuropsychiatric systemic lupus erythematosus]

Determination of antineuronal antibodies was carried out by a solid phase radioimmunoassay, in which the neuronal cells SK-N-SH were cultured as the target antigens, the positive rate in sera and CSF of neuropsychiatric SLE patients being 85% and 77.8% respectively, all with quite high level of antibodies. Although 66.7% sera of SLE patients without CNS involvement were also positive for the antibodies, yet the antibody levels of them were distinctly lower, and only 3 of them showed weak positive reactions in their CSF. It was shown that 90% of neuropsychiatric SLE patients with diffuse CNS manifestations had increased antineuronal antibodies, compared with only 20% in cases with local CNS involvements. The antibody levels both in sera and CSF decreased remarkably following the patients' recovery from the neuropsychiatric attack. It is concluded that the antineuronal antibodies might play a role in the pathogenesis of neuropsychiatric lupus and the determination of them in CSF might be useful in the diagnosis and differential diagnosis of neuropsychiatric lupus.