Of mice and men: experimental autoimmune encephalitis and multiple sclerosis

Background Research using experimental autoimmune encephalitis (EAE) models accounts for almost 20% of the papers. published in multiple sclerosis (MS). Methods We performed a literature review of papers indexed with ISI Web of Science on EAE and MS over the last 30 years and a detailed analysis of studies of molecular pathways in EAE published in 2008 and 2009. Results The impact of EAE studies declines more rapidly than other studies published on MS (EAE cited corrected half-life = 4.00 years vs. MS cited corrected half-life = 9.66 years, P < 0.0001). The pathology of EAE differs quite markedly from that observed in the human disease. EAE has implicated many different genes as important to pathogenesis but only a minority of these are supported by human studies. Conclusions Future research should critically appraise precisely what is being modelled by EAE before drawing conclusions about human disease.