Infections of the Central Nervous System

摘要: Relapsing fever and Lyme disease, infections most commonly acquired through bites of hematophagous arthropods, are caused by spirochetes in the genus Borrelia. Both can involve the nervous system; meningitis and cranial neuritis occur commonly. Relapsing fevers may cause more severe manifestations, leading in extreme cases to brain microhemorrhages and focal central nervous system (CNS) damage. Focal CNS involvement is quite rare in Lyme borreliosis; the details of its pathophysiologic mechanisms, although clearly inflammatory, remain to be elucidated.