Absence of Brain Antibodies in Senile Dementia

In recent years the recognition of autoimmune processes has led to important advances in our understanding of certain diseases of hitherto uncertain causation (Mackay and Burnet, 1963). In psychiatry, schizophrenia has been the main focus of studies of auto-immunity, with Heath and Krupp (1967) reporting positive results of tests for antibodies to brain cell nuclei and Whittingham et al. (1968) reporting negative results. Studies have been described (McAlpine et al., 1965) in which antibodies were detected to whole brain homogen- ates, mostly by complement-fixation, in various disease states that included multiple sclerosis. Wilkinson and Zeromski (1965) found, by immunofluorescence, serum antibodies to cytoplasm of neurones in four of eight patients with carcinomatous neuropathy.