Synonyms
Herpes encephalitis; Meningoencephalitis; Viral encephalitis
Short Description
Herpes simplex encephalitis (HSE) is an infection of parenchymal brain tissue by either the herpes simplex 1 virus (HSV-1) or, less frequently, the herpes simplex 2 virus (HSV-2). Central nervous system (CNS) infection with HSV-1 or HSV-2 is most often characterized by inflammatory changes and tissue destruction in the temporal lobe. If HSE is suspected, treatment with acyclovir should be immediately initiated. Left untreated, HSV infections of the CNS are fatal in more than 70% of cases. However, with the advent of antiviral therapy with acyclovir, the mortality rate has decreased to 15–20% (Jouan et al. 2015).
Categorization
The herpes viruses are DNA viruses that belong to the larger herpes viridae family (Halperin 2007). The HSV-1 and HSV-2 viruses are further subcategorized as Alphaherpesvirinaebased on various characteristics that establish how they will manifest as disease in humans...
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Diamond, B.J., Mosley, J.E. (2018). Herpes Simplex Encephalitis. In: Kreutzer, J.S., DeLuca, J., Caplan, B. (eds) Encyclopedia of Clinical Neuropsychology. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-57111-9_557
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-57111-9_557
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