Compared with the acute stage, the CSF chemokine levels of IL-8 (77.54 (15.90–473.87) pg/ml vs. 7.89 (5.73–9.28) pg/ml), RANTES (3.44 (1.40–5.57) pg/ml vs. 1.00 (0.74–1.33) pg/ml), MIG (3.87 (1.97–4.83) pg/ml vs. 1.48 (0.86–1.95) pg/ml) and IP-10 (980.79 (406.20–2314.40) pg/ml vs. 56.07 (34.51–106.77) pg/ml) significantly decreased in the convalescent stage (Fig. 2a,b,c,e) of encephalitis in 13 patients, except for MCP-1 (86.60 (33.42–831.52) pg/ml vs. 79.86 (51.36–93.89) pg/ml) (Fig. 2d). Here, CXCL8 is linked to encephalitis.