The onchocerciasis hypothesis of nodding syndrome

Robert Colebunders; Amber Hadermann; Joseph Nelson Siewe Fodjo

doi:10.1371/journal.pntd.0011523

The onchocerciasis hypothesis of nodding syndrome

PLoS Negl Trop Dis. 2023 Aug 17;17(8):e0011523. doi: 10.1371/journal.pntd.0011523. eCollection 2023 Aug.

Authors

Robert Colebunders¹, Amber Hadermann¹, Joseph Nelson Siewe Fodjo¹

Affiliation

¹ Global Health Institute University of Antwerp, Antwerp, Belgium.

Abstract

Nodding syndrome (NS) is a phenotypic presentation of onchocerciasis-associated epilepsy (OAE). OAE is an important public health problem in areas with high ongoing Onchocerca volvulus transmission. OAE, including NS, is preventable by strengthening onchocerciasis elimination programs. The presence of tau in OAE postmortem brains could be the consequence of neuroinflammation directly or indirectly induced by O. volvulus. Omics research is needed to investigate whether O. volvulus worms contain a neurotropic virus.

Copyright: © 2023 Colebunders et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

Publication types

Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

Humans
Nodding Syndrome* / parasitology
Onchocerca volvulus*
Onchocerciasis / complications
Onchocerciasis / transmission

Grants and funding

RC and JNSF received funding from the Research Foundation – Flanders (FWO), grant numbers G0A0522N and 1296723N respectively. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.