Webinar: Microbes and Mental Illness: What every mental health worker should know about Lyme disease

Persistent infection with tick-borne infections often causes serious neuropsychiatric symptoms that are resistant to standard psychiatric interventions. It is important that mental health workers learn to recognize an underlying organic pathology in these patients so that they receive appropriate treatment.

In this webinar, Dr. Kinderlehrer reviews the various presentations of neuropsychiatric Lyme disease, outline when to suspect an underlying infection, and suggest initial laboratory evaluation.

Dr. Shimasaki will present Molecular Mimicry: How infections can trigger autoimmune encephalitis and neuropsychiatric symptoms. He reviews the biological mechanism of molecular mimicry which can lead to the production of autoantibodies, resulting in neuropsychiatric symptoms. He also discusses how the diagnosis and treatment of underlying infections, inflammation and immune dysfunction can result in significant symptom improvement and how the Cunningham Panel can be utilized to help identify and treat these patients.

Chapters:

3:27 – Presentation – Connection between infections, immune system and the brain by Dr. Shimasaki
6:15 – How does this occur biologically?
8:04 – Infections more frequently associated with autoimmune encephalopathies
8:16 – Molecular Mimicry
10:51 – Precision medicine – identifying underlying root of neuropsychiatric symptoms
12:14 – Presentation – Microbes and Mental Illness by Dr. Daniel Kinderlehrer
13:57 – Lyme disease – an epidemic
17:25 – What is chronic Lyme disease?
23:19 – The role of co-infections
29:13 – Reasons for persistence
31:57 – How do these infections make people sick?
33:12 – Case study
35:58 – Psychiatric conditions related to Lyme disease
37:35 – When to consider psychiatric Lyme
40:43 – Indicators of possible psychiatric Lyme
42:25 – Psychiatric conditions associated with Bartonella infection
46:35 – When to consider Lyme disease
47:48 – Testing for Lyme disease
54:52 – Q&A session