- About this Journal
- Abstracting and Indexing
- Aims and Scope
- Article Processing Charges
- Articles in Press
- Author Guidelines
- Bibliographic Information
- Citations to this Journal
- Contact Information
- Editorial Board
- Editorial Workflow
- Free eTOC Alerts
- Publication Ethics
- Reviewers Acknowledgment
- Submit a Manuscript
- Subscription Information
- Table of Contents
Neurology Research International
Volume 2012 (2012), Article ID 460825, 13 pages
doi:10.1155/2012/460825
Neuromyelitis Optica: An Antibody-Mediated Disorder of the Central Nervous System
Department of Neurology, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, 600 N. Wolfe Street, Pathology 509, Baltimore, MD 21287, USA
Received 7 July 2011; Revised 4 October 2011; Accepted 13 October 2011
Academic Editor: Philippe Cabre
Copyright © 2012 Jiwon Oh and Michael Levy. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Abstract
Neuromyelitis optica (NMO) is a recurrent inflammatory disease that preferentially targets the optic nerves and spinal cord leading to blindness and paralysis. The hallmarks of NMO include bilateral optic neuritis and longitudinally extensive transverse myelitis. Woman and African Americans are overrepresented in the US patient population. NMO is associated with the NMO-IgG biomarker, which targets the aquaporin-4 water channel on astrocytes. The humoral pathology of NMO lesions include IgG and IgM deposits and infiltration by granulocytes suggesting that the NMO-IgG may be involved in the pathogenesis of disease. This review of the recent NMO literature covers the clinical features, epidemiology, radiology and pathology of disease and includes discussion of the important basic science research work in the field.