Both our laboratory and that of Vedeleret al. have demonstrated that anti-Yo IgG can be taken up by Purkinje cells in rat cerebellar slice cultures and can cause cell death36–39; and anti-Hu IgG, associated with encephalomyelitis in the setting of small-cell lung cancer, has been shown to produce neuronal death in dispersed cultures of cerebellar neurons and of multiple neuronal populations in slice cultures of rat brains40,41. Here, CDR2 is linked to encephalomyelitis.