Monogenic Mimics of Neuroinflammatory Phenotypes in Children and Young Adults - Part 2

In the second installment of this two-part series, Drs. Stacey Clardy, Ayush Gupta, and Kuntal Sen discuss the most practical testing approach to minimize both under‑ and over‑testing for these disorders.

Show citation:

Gupta A, Sahjwani D, Kahn I, Gombolay GY, Sen K. Monogenic Mimics of Neuroinflammatory Phenotypes in Children and Young Adults: An Evolving Landscape. Neurol Genet. 2025;11(6):e200326. Published 2025 Nov 25. doi:10.1212/NXG.0000000000200326

Show transcript:

Dr. Stacey Clardy:

Hi, this is Stacey Clardy from the Salt Lake City VA in the University of Utah. For a two-part podcast series this week, I've been speaking with Ayush Gupta, from the University of Nebraska Medical Center, and Kuntal Sen, from Children's National Hospital in Washington, DC about monogenic disorders that mimic neuroinflammatory disease. There are a lot of them, and they are no doubt sitting in our clinics waiting to be recognized.

Ayush, for the minute, once a neurologist starts suspecting one of these disorders, what's the most practical testing strategy to avoid both under and over-testing for these disorders?

Dr. Ayush Gupta:

I think the most practical strategy is to write down all the phenotypic symptoms that you think could be related, put that exact information into a genetic testing panel that will be suitable. Or, if possible, try to do a broader genetic testing such as whole genome sequencing, and make yourself equipped to be able to analyze the results that you get from the testing.

Dr. Stacey Clardy:

I hear you saying, at least when you're thinking about this, be a bit of a lumper. As we covered in the podcast, if we are going to pursue that genetic testing, it is absolutely critical that we share that list with the interpreting geneticist because that determines how they score variants and how they rate them as related or not.

Please take a listen to that two-part podcast series, where we get into all these details. I walked away with a great framework on how to do better in terms of picking these disorders out. Again, the paper that accompanies the two-part podcast series is in Neurology Genetics. It's a comprehensive review and called Monogenic Mimics of Neuroinflammatory Phenotypes in Children and Young Adults in Evolving Landscape.

Thank you, Ayush.

Dr. Ayush Gupta:

Thank you so much.