Molecular immunological study focussing on cerebral vasculitis in Hashimoto's encephalopathy associated with chronic thyroiditis

2014 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

• Project/Area Number: 24591358
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (C)
• Allocation Type: Multi-year Fund
• Section: 一般
• Research Field: Endocrinology
• Research Institution: Fukui Prefectural University (2013-2014); University of Fukui (2012)
• Principal Investigator: YONEDA Makoto 福井県立大学, 看護福祉学部, 教授 (70270551)
• Co-Investigator(Kenkyū-buntansha): TAKAMURA Toshinari 金沢大学, 医学系, 教授 (00324111) ; IKAWA Masamichi 福井大学, 医学部付属病院, 助教 (60444212)
• Project Period (FY): 2012-04-01 – 2015-03-31
• Keywords: 橋本脳症 / 自己抗体 / 脳血管炎 / SPECT画像 / プロテオーム

Outline of Final Research Achievements

We focused on the cerebral vasculitis in Hashimoto’s encephalopathy (HE) associated with chronic thyroiditis in this research. We evaluated the changes in regional cerebral blood flow (rCBF) between 7 cases of HE with anti-NAE autoantibodies, a useful diagnostic marker of HE, and 10 controls using brain SPECT by 3D-SSP analysis. The rCBF of patients with HE was significantly decreased in the bilateral anterior cingulate areas and left prefrontal cortex compared with the controls, in which both brain areas are closely related to memory disturbance and psychosis. We further evaluated the changes in proteomes after the supplementation of sera from patients with HE to a human cerebral endothelial cultured cells, and demonstrated significant decreases in several proteomes. These data strongly suggests that cerebral vasculitis plays a crucial role in the pathogenesis of HE.

Free Research Field

分子免疫学，神経内科，画像解析学