Auto-immune Contribution in Symptom-based Sensory and Autonomic Disorders

Standardised participant questionnaires assessing neurological symptoms, including pain (NPSI, DN4, BPI), fatigue (Fatigue Severity Scale), depression and anxiety (PHQ9 and GAD7) and autonomic dysfunction (Malmo PoTS Score and COMPASS-31).

Measures how fast an electrical impulse moves through sensory and motor nerves. The test will be used to identify/rule out large fibre peripheral neuropathy.

Electrophysiological technique that can record action potentials from individual peripheral nerve axons in humans. The test will be used to identify/rule out small nerve fibre dysfunction.

Measures psychophysical sensory perception in response to different types of stimuli, such as thermal, mechanical, pressure and vibration. The test will be used to identify/rule out nerve fibre dysfunction, by generating a quantitative sensory profile of different sensory modalities.

Safe and minimally invasive procedure to quantify intraepidermal nerve fibres density (IENFD). Reduced IENF density is associated with small fibre neuropathy.

A blood sample of a maximum of 120ml will be collected from a superficial upper limb vein. Blood aliquots (50ml tubes) will then be centrifuged to separate serum from the peripheral blood cells.