A 69-year-old man with a history of myocardial infarction presented with crying-like spells. MRI demonstrated abnormal signal in the left mesiotemporal lobe, and he was diagnosed with stroke. Over the following 1 year, he developed progressive cognitive decline, slow gait, masked facies, hypophonic voice, and brief facial and upper extremity spasms (8 per hour) often followed by brief crying spells lacking emotion. Spell semiology was consistent with faciobrachial dystonic seizures1 and dacrystic seizures2 (video at Neurology.org/nn). Leucine-rich glioma-inactivated-1 (LGI1) autoantibodies, detected in serum, led to a diagnosis of anti-LGI1 encephalitis. This is the first report of dacrystic seizures accompanying anti-LGI1 encephalitis.
Footnotes
Supplemental data at Neurology.org/nn
Author contributions: Avi Gadoth: data acquisition. Jaysingh Singh: data acquisition, EEG interpretation, and review of manuscript. Jeffrey W. Britton: EEG interpretation and review of manuscript. Eoin P. Flanagan: critical revision of manuscript. Sean J. Pittock: data acquisition and critical revision of manuscript.
Study funding: No targeted funding reported.
Disclosure: A. Gadoth and J. Singh report no disclosures. J.W. Britton received research support from Grifols and Mr. and Mrs. David Hawk charitable gift for epilepsy research. E.P. Flanagan reports no disclosures. S.J. Pittock and Mayo Clinic have a financial interest in patents that relate to functional AQPf/NMO-IgG assays and NMO-IgG as a cancer market. S.J. Pittock consulted for Alexion and MedImmune and received research support from Grifols, MedImmune, and Alexion, RO1 NS-65829-91. Go to Neurology.org/nn for full disclosure forms. The Article Processing Charge was funded by the authors.
- Received March 28, 2017.
- Accepted in final form April 23, 2017.
- Copyright © 2017 The Author(s). Published by Wolters Kluwer Health, Inc. on behalf of the American Academy of Neurology.
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