ABSTRACT

Neuroimmunological disorders came to the forefront in neurology in the past decade. Especially, our knowledge on multiple sclerosis, neuromyelitis optica and limbic encephalitis have massively grown and important diagnostic and therapeutic advances have been made. These disorders arise from the faulty interaction of the two most complex systems of human body: neurological and immune systems. Neurolo-gists will encounter these disorders many times in a life time and they will need an understanding of the immunopathogenesis in order to be able to treat such diseases. In this two-part review, we aim to increase knowledge of medical students, neurology residents and neurologists on neuroimmunology. We will try to do this by explaining immunopathogenesis of the prototypical disorder: multiple sclerosis. In this first part, we will describe the types and histopathological characteristics of multiple sclerosis plaques and try to answer the intriguing question of why some patients with excessive number of lesions are in good clinical condition, while the others with lower plaque load have severe disease.