ArticleArthritis research & therapy2025
The impact of disease activity and interferon-α on the nervous system in systemic lupus erythematosus.
Article in Arthritis research & therapy, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 11 papers, 2 of them syntheses that pooled it.
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Who cites it
11 citing papers in PubMed, 2 syntheses or guidelines pooled it.
- Artificial Intelligence-based detection of neuropsychiatric lupus: an exploratory meta-analysis of neuroimaging and multimodal biomarker models.Clinical and experimental medicine · 2026Pooled it
- Rationale for investigating the use of anifrolumab in neuropsychiatric systemic lupus erythematosus: a combined narrative and case-based systematic literature review.Frontiers in immunology · 2026Pooled it
- Cerebellar volume alterations are associated with cognitive dysfunction and fatigue in patients with systemic lupus erythematosus.BMC rheumatology · 2026Article
- Hippocampal neuroinflammation and altered peripheral neurobiological protein profile in experimental arthritis and systemic juvenile idiopathic arthritis.EBioMedicine · 2026Article
- Elevated serum brain injury markers are associated with disease activity, pro-inflammatory cytokine levels and cognitive dysfunction in adolescents with childhood-onset SLE.Lupus science & medicine · 2026Article
- Predictive model of cognitive dysfunction among the patients with systemic lupus erythematosus.Clinical rheumatology · 2026Article
- HAPI Cells are SIM-A9-related Mouse Microglial Cells Useful forbioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2026Article
- Neuro-Immune Crosstalk: Molecular Mechanisms, Biological Functions, Diseases, and Therapeutic Targets.MedComm · 2026Review
- Can Phagocytosis, Neutrophil Extracellular Traps, and IFN-α Production in Systemic Lupus Erythematosus Be Simultaneously Modulated? A Pharmacological Perspective.International journal of molecular sciences · 2026Review
- Role of combination immunotherapy in restoring brain synergistic functional connectivity in patients with systemic lupus erythematosus without overt neuropsychiatric manifestations.Lupus science & medicine · 2025Article
- Data-Driven Cluster Analysis of Cerebrospinal Fluid Proteome and Associations with Clinical Phenotypes in Systemic Lupus Erythematosus.ACR open rheumatology · 2025Article
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Authors and funding
10 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
backgroundSystemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) patients, with or without neuropsychiatric SLE (NPSLE), exhibit greater neuronal impairment compared to healthy individuals in terms of neuronal damage, magnet resonance imaging (MRI) changes and cognitive dysfunction. Interferon (IFN)-α is a key immunopathogenic driver of SLE, being persistently overexpressed in the majority of patients. This longitudinal study aimed to investigate whether disease activity and serum IFN-α levels over time were associated with objective findings of neuronal impairment regarding (i) higher plasma neurofilament light (NfL) concentrations, (ii) structural alterations on MRI, and (iii) cognitive dysfunction upon testing.
methodsSixty-six consecutive female SLE outpatients were enrolled in a cross-sectional study. Retrospectively, prior visits with concomitant blood samples (n = 199) were selected from the Lund Lupus Cohort database and biobank. Serum IFN-α concentrations were measured using an electrochemiluminescence immunoassay. IFN-α lupus phenotypes were defined as high (n = 24) or low (n = 33) by considering persistent elevations in serum IFN-α concentrations despite low SLE Disease Activity Index-2000 (SLEDAI-2 K) scores. SLEDAI-2 K lupus phenotypes were defined as moderate-high (n = 31) or low (n = 35) based on SLEDAI-2 K scores from all 576 available visits prior to the study. Ongoing neuronal damage was assessed by plasma NfL concentration measurements using Simoa at the 199 visits. Structural MRI alterations and cognitive dysfunction according to the CNS-Vital Signs test battery were the additional outcomes. Multivariate linear mixed-effect, linear regression, and logistic regression models were used for the statistical analyses.
resultsVisits with higher disease activity were associated with higher plasma NfL concentrations (e.g. SLEDAI-2 K total: p = 1.5*10
conclusionsThe study suggests that disease activity and IFN-α may drive neuronal affliction in SLE, also in the absence of overt neuropsychiatric symptoms, and that controlling disease activity could improve the cerebral outcome.
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