Websites
Collaborators
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Belinda Lennox
Head of Department
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Paul Harrison
Professor of Psychiatry; Associate Head of Department (Research)
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Ivan Koychev
Senior Clinical Researcher
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Vanessa Raymont
Associate Professor, R&D Director Oxford Health NHS Foundation Trust
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Amedeo Minichino
Wellcome Trust Early Career Fellow
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Matthew Nour
NIHR Clinical Lecturer in Psychiatry
Adam Al-Diwani
MA BMBCh DPhil MRCP MRCPsych
NIHR Clinical Lecturer
- Honorary psychiatry specialist registrar (general and older adult)
- Tutor Oxford medical school brain and behaviour rotation
Neuroimmunology in Neuropsychiatry
I am a clinician-scientist interested in leveraging neuroimmunology to better understand neuropsychiatric disorders. This includes encephalitis, dementia, and brain injury.
During my Wellcome DPhil I made discoveries about how antibodies against the NMDA glutamate receptor can be made - just outside the brain in neck lymph nodes. Together with patients we showed that this sampling was not only safe and acceptable but gives a highly informative sample.
I have since shown that these samples can teach us about brain waste clearance in people. We are now working to learn from people across the age span with and without cognitive impairment to see how this relates to their clearance system. The first disease-modifying treatments in Alzheimer's disease are targeting this clearance - so we anticipate this could be a valuable tool to read out the effect of emerging therapies.
Key publications
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Cervical lymph nodes and ovarian teratomas as germinal centres in NMDA receptor-antibody encephalitis.
Journal article
Al-Diwani A. et al, (2022), Brain, 145, 2742 - 2754
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Neurodegenerative fluid biomarkers are enriched in human cervical lymph nodes
Preprint
Al-Diwani A. et al, (2024)
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Fine needle aspiration of human lymph nodes reveals cell populations and soluble interactors pivotal to immunological priming.
Journal article
Provine NM. et al, (2024), Eur J Immunol
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The psychopathology of NMDAR-antibody encephalitis in adults: a systematic review and phenotypic analysis of individual patient data.
Journal article
Al-Diwani A. et al, (2019), Lancet Psychiatry, 6, 235 - 246
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In Vivo N-Methyl-d-Aspartate Receptor (NMDAR) Density as Assessed Using Positron Emission Tomography During Recovery From NMDAR-Antibody Encephalitis.
Journal article
Galovic M. et al, (2022), JAMA Neurol
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The autoantibody-mediated encephalitides: from clinical observations to molecular pathogenesis.
Journal article
Ramanathan S. et al, (2021), J Neurol, 268, 1689 - 1707
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Rituximab abrogates aquaporin-4-specific germinal center activity in patients with neuromyelitis optica spectrum disorders.
Journal article
Damato V. et al, (2022), Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A, 119
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Clinical relevance of serum antibodies to extracellular N-methyl-D-aspartate receptor epitopes.
Journal article
Zandi MS. et al, (2015), J Neurol Neurosurg Psychiatry, 86, 708 - 713
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Immunopsychiatry in 2021: premise to promise, and back again.
Journal article
Al-Diwani A. et al, (2022), Lancet Psychiatry, 9, 11 - 12
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The clinical relevance of serum versus CSF NMDAR autoantibodies associated exclusively with psychiatric features: a systematic review and meta-analysis of individual patient data.
Journal article
Blackman G. et al, (2022), J Neurol, 269, 5302 - 5311
Recent publications
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N-methyl-D-aspartate receptor- antibody encephalitis impairs maintenance of attention to items in working memory.
Journal article
Dor A. et al, (2024), J Neurosci