October 16-2019 | Carolyn Keating and Sarah Reitz
Hello AE Community!
Our names are Carolyn and Sarah, and we are happy to announce the partnership between IAES and our blog, PennNeuroKnow (PNK). We are working with IAES to learn about topics that patients and families in the AE community have trouble understanding, in order to create handouts and blog posts that explain these issues in a way that’s easy to digest. We’re excited to begin this alliance and to introduce our team to the AE community.
PNK is a blog we founded in early 2018 to dive into the complex field of neuroscience and simplify it so that anyone can understand. Including the two of us, we have 6 writers creating weekly articles ranging from general topics like how the brain produces curiosity, to breaking down specific journal articles on subjects like how the bacteria in your gut may be linked to depression. All of us are PhD students in the University of Pennsylvania’s Neuroscience Graduate Group who are committed to better communicating science. We know that scientific studies are sometimes difficult to both access and understand, so we want to use our training as scientists to share our passion for neuroscience and make our field more accessible to everyone.
We were first introduced to IAES in July 2019, when Carolyn wrote about NMDAR encephalitis in a blog post called When Your Brain is on Fire. IAES saw the post and shared it on their Facebook page, giving the article much greater reach than we normally experience. The amount of positive feedback we have received from the AE community has been overwhelming, and we are truly grateful to have been able to help so many people understand the science behind the disease that has affected themselves or a loved one. Now thanks to IAES President Tabitha Orth reaching out to us about forming a partnership, we are excited to produce more easy-to-read articles on complex topics important to the AE community.
All of our writers are looking forward to learning more about AE and the issues that are difficult for patients and families to grasp. Already we are hard at work learning and writing about how AE relates to the immune system, memory loss, and FDG-PET scans, just to name a few topics. We hope that we can use our strengths as neuroscientists to help translate complicated subjects and journal articles into something everyone can understand, and are excited to contribute to this wonderful community. We want to make sure we are writing about topics that are most important to you and your family members, so please do not hesitate to reach out to either Tabitha or us with topics you would like to learn more about!
E-mail Sarah and Carolyn Directly at PNK
Your generous Donations allow IAES to continue our important work and saves lives!
Become an Advocate by sharing your story. It may result in an accurate diagnosis for someone suffering right now who is yet to be correctly identified. Submit your story with two photos to: IAES@autoimmune-encephalitis.org
Recent Comments