Pediatric autoimmune encephalitis: A clinical assessment by a psychiatrist

A clinical case of a 9-year-old patient with a seronegative autoimmune encephalitis (AE) is presented. The literature data indicate a particular difficulty in verifying cases of autoimmune encephalitis in childhood, as well as the lack of accuracy in the existing expert criteria. The clinical presentation of AE is polymorphic and variable and includes neurological and psychiatric syndromes in various proportions, including cases with a predominance of mental disorders and a recurrent course. The study of this category of patients by psychiatrists is challenging due to the rarity of the pathology and routing of patients to various, mainly infectious, neurological, or oncological somatic hospitals.