Anna Heidbreder, MD: Anti-IgLON5 Disease, REM Sleep Behavior Disorder

“What is important, I think, is to ask patients with a combination of neurological symptoms [about] sleep disorders to find out if they have anti-IgLON5. I believe there are many more IgLON5 patients in the population than what has been described until now.”

Currently, the course of the anti-IgLON5 disease, believed to be a neurodegenerative autoimmune disease characterized by parasomnia and chorea, is known to be short, with most patients dying within months.

Since it was first described in a small cohort of patients in 2014, Anna Heidbreder, MD, from the Institute for Sleep Medicine and Neuromuscular Disorders at the UKM University Hospital Muenster, and colleagues have been working to better understand how the disease operates within the body. Thus far, they have observed 4 prominent identifying symptoms of the condition:

1. Sleep disorders.
2. Bulbar syndrome.
3. PSP-like syndrome.
4. Cognitive impairment.

To further describe the current understanding of the condition and what she and her colleagues have found, Heidbreder sat with NeurologyLive at the 24th Congress of the European Sleep Research Society in Basel, Switzerland.

REFERENCE

Heidbreder A. The universal presence of RBD in autoimmune/neurodegenerative disorders: the anti-IgLON5 disease. Presented at: 24th Congress of the European Sleep Research Society; Basel, Switzerland; September 25 to 28, 2018. professionalabstracts.com/esrs2018/iplanner/#/presentation/370.