• Thiago Cardoso Vale, José Luiz Pedroso, Rafaela Almeida Alquéres, Lívia Almeida Dutra, and Orlando Graziani Povoas Barsottini.
• Movement Disorders Unit, Neurology Service, University Hospital, Department of Internal Medicine, Faculty of Medicine, Federal University of Juiz de Fora (UFJF), Juiz de Fora, MG, Brazil.
• J. Neurol. Sci. 2015 Dec 15; 359 (1-2): 21-3.

AbstractGlutamic acid decarboxylase (GAD) is the enzyme that catalyzes the conversion of glutamic acid to the neurotransmitter gamma-amino butyric acid. Antibodies against GAD (anti-GAD-Ab) are associated with an array of autoimmune-related neurological conditions, such as stiff-person syndrome, cerebellar ataxia, epilepsy and limbic encephalitis. The clinical spectrum of ataxia associated with anti-GAD-Ab comprises slowly progressive cerebellar ataxia syndrome evolving in months or years, associated with cerebellar atrophy on brain MRI. There are few reports of patients with ataxia associated with anti-GAD-Ab presenting with abnormal ocular movements, such as downbeat nystagmus (DBN).We present two patients with ataxia associated with anti-GAD-Ab from a large series of ataxic subjects who presented with cerebellar ataxia combined with spontaneous DBN. All patients underwent a thorough neurological evaluation with the use of ataxia scales, brain MRI scans, cerebrospinal fluid examination, 18FDG-PET/CT scans, laboratory work-up with on coneural and immune encephalitis antibodies, serum and cerebrospinal fluid levels of anti-GAD-Ab, and the antibody specificity index to measure the intrathecal synthesis of anti-GAD-Ab. All patients were treated with cycles of intravenous immunoglobulin and had mild/partial ataxia improvement and no improvement of DBN. The finding of DBN may work as a diagnostic clue in the context of adult-onset non-hereditary ataxias.

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