Dr. Alex Menze and Dr. Divyanshu Dubey discuss the clinical insights into autoimmune nodopathies, particularly focusing on CASPR1 and CASPR1/CNTN1-complex-IgG.

Show citation:

Paramasivan NK, Basal E, LaFrance-Corey RG, et al. Clinical Insights Into CASPR1 and CASPR1/Contactin-1 Complex Autoimmune Nodopathies. Neurology. 2026;106(5):e214403. doi:10.1212/WNL.0000000000214403

Show transcript:

Dr. Alexander Menze:

Hi, this is Alexander Menze. I just finished interviewing Divyanshu Dubey for the Neurology podcast. For today's Neurology Minute, I'm hoping you can tell us the main points of your paper.

Dr. Divyanshu Dubey:

Our paper talks about a rare form of autoimmune neuropathy associated with antibodies, CASPR1, as well as CASPR1/Contactin-1 complex IgG. These patients present with similar to CIDP, IDP, but tend to have more rapid progression, often a lot of sensory features preceding motor deficits including sensory ataxia in the contact and CASPR complex cases and presence of neuropathic pain in some of the CASPR1 cases. These patients, similar to other neuropathies are refractory to IVIg, but respond relatively well to rituximab.

Dr. Alexander Menze:

Thank you. Be sure to download this week's podcast to hear our full interview.

Dr. Halley Alexander and Dr. Alissa M. D'Gama discuss genetic testing for infantile epilepsies.

Show citation:

Nguyen JNH, Lachgar-Ruiz M, Higginbotham EJ, et al. Diagnostic Yield of Comprehensive Reanalysis After Nondiagnostic Short-Read Genome Sequencing in Infants With Unexplained Epilepsy. Neurology. 2026;106(6):e214645. doi:10.1212/WNL.0000000000214645

Show transcript:

Dr. Halley Alexander:

Hi, this is Halley Alexander with today's Neurology Minute, and I'm here with Dr. Alissa D'Gama from Boston Children's Hospital and Harvard Medical School, and we just finished recording a full-length podcast about some exciting new work in genetic testing for infantile onset epilepsies. Alissa, can you tell us what you found briefly and why it's important for neurology care?

Dr. Alissa D'Gama:

Infantile epilepsies are relatively common, and they're associated with substantial burden of disease, and we know that identifying underlying genetic causes can impact clinical care. It's important for emerging precision therapies. But even after genome sequencing, which is the most comprehensive clinical genetic testing currently available, most infants remain genetically unsolved.

And so what we did was take that genome sequencing data and reanalyze it for a cohort of infants who had unexplained non-acquired epilepsy and non-diagnostic genome sequencing, and in about 5% of cases, our reanalysis was able to identify a genetic diagnosis, and all of these diagnoses had impact on clinical care for their infants and their families. In some cases, we could incorporate new information, either new clinical information about the patient or new scientific methods or information about disease associations, and in other cases, we were able to incorporate new analysis methods to identify variants. And so our findings suggest that implementing reanalysis for infants or any individual with epilepsy within a year or two of non-diagnostic testing may be useful.

Dr. Halley Alexander:

Thank you so much, and you can find a lot more details by listening to the full-length podcast, which is available now on the Neurology podcast, and you can find the full article in the March 10th issue of Neurology or online at neurology.org. As always, thanks for tuning in for today's Neurology Minute.

In part three of this series, Dr. Jeff Ratliff discusses how access to information is not the same as clinical confidence.

Show transcript:

Dr. Jeff Ratliff:

Hi, this is Jeff Ratliff from Thomas Jefferson University, and this is your Neurology Minute.

I'm back again with a Neurology Minute episode to complement the podcast discussion I had with Roy Strowd, Justin Abbatemarco, and Tesha Monteith on the topic of technology-driven shifts in neurology education. In the episode, we touched on podcasting, AI-based learning, and social media on neurology education as a panel discussion.

While there is still tremendous utility and promise and excitement around these tools, I think it's still helpful for us all to remember that access to information is not the same as clinical confidence. With tools like podcasts, learners can hear expert discussions on their commute or review topics in new interactive formats. With AI tools, learners can simulate talking to patients with a multitude of neurologic conditions. These digital tools can provide answers at hours, and our learners fingertips much more readily than even recent years. But as we watch the explosion of these tools impact, we must keep in mind the value of bedside clinical teaching.

As teachers, as educators, there's still a great impact we can have by watching a resident examine a patient with ataxia, or coaching them through a difficult conversation with a patient. We can still help them teach the skill of reasoning through their clinical encounters in real time so that they can remember to ask that key history question, or to add in that critical exam maneuver. So, as impressive and impactful the latest and greatest teaching tool may be, I encourage you all not to shy away from going back to the bedside with the student, the resident, or fellow working with you today. Thanks for listening to the Neurology Minute. We'll see you next time.