Brain Inflammation Collaborative, Inc.

The Brain Inflammation Collaborative is a non-profit organization that is committed to investigating the connection between mental health and brain inflammation caused by infections, autoimmune diseases, allergies, and injuries. Our mission is to advance treatments for neuroinflammation through research, advocacy, and education. To achieve this, we develop scalable partnerships and collaborations, strategies, and tools to support researchers, patients, and clinicians. We advocate for a collective, longitudinal approach to studying infection associated chronic conditions, recognizing that research insights from one condition can drive progress across many others, through every stage of life, including pediatrics. Complementing the work of advocacy groups that focus on single conditions, populations, and/or age groups, we work to connect patient communities, ensuring individuals with any of 30+ related diseases can contribute to and benefit from research. Brain inflammation, as the result of autoimmune processes, infections, allergies, & injuries can trigger or mimic common mental health symptoms such as depression, anxiety, OCD, panic attacks and behavior changes – sometimes even presenting as other serious illnesses such as anorexia. These symptoms are frequently misdiagnosed leading to confusion, delay of care, or even the wrong care. To combat this, we need better research. We look to reduce the barriers to research by helping as needed with protocol writing assistance, IRB navigation, study data collection & analysis, as well as publication writing guidance.