# Looking for recent news story (2022-23) about young female athlete from Ireland or the UK, who suffered personality change before diagnosis and treatment **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [April 1, 2023, 7:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/looking-for-recent-news-story-2022-23-about-young-female-athlete-from-ireland-or-the-uk-who-suffered-personality-change-before-diagnosis-and-treatment/981998 "2023-04-01T19:03:09Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 3\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![bibliophage](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bibliophage/32/7615_2.png) [@bibliophage](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bibliophage)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2023, 7:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/looking-for-recent-news-story-2022-23-about-young-female-athlete-from-ireland-or-the-uk-who-suffered-personality-change-before-diagnosis-and-treatment/981998/1 "2023-04-01T19:03:09Z")
I’m putting this in FQ rather than Cafe Society because I’m far more interested in the neurology of her case than the fact she is an athlete. I don’t object to its being moved if the mods so decree. I read this story maybe sometime between summer 2022 and January this year but for the life of me I can’t find it again. The story was probably on the BBC website. It was about a young female athlete, probably aged 18 to 25, from Ireland or the UK but probably not Scotland. She was a member of a team in a football-like sport (maybe association football/soccer, rugby, or Gaelic football). I don’t remember if it was an amateur, professional, or semi-pro team. She developed mysterious symptoms, including a change of personality where she became testy and generally unpleasant. There may also have been physical symptoms. She lost her place on the team. It took her a long time to get a diagnosis, but once she was diagnosed and began treatment, she quickly began to recover her old personality. I can’t remember what caused the issue, whether it was traumatic brain injury, parasites, viruses, bacteria, autoimmune disease, bad reaction to medication, or whatever else. I seem to recall she expressed wonder that her parents stood by her despite her personality change. At press time, she was hoping to try out for the team again. I think the story featured a photograph of her in a hospital bed. I can’t swear all these details are correct. The story didn’t make that big an impact on me at the time, but I’ve been thinking about it more and more lately. ---
**Author:** ![bibliophage](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bibliophage/32/7615_2.png) [@bibliophage](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bibliophage)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2023, 11:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/looking-for-recent-news-story-2022-23-about-young-female-athlete-from-ireland-or-the-uk-who-suffered-personality-change-before-diagnosis-and-treatment/981998/2 "2023-04-01T23:18:19Z")
Okay, I found the athlete I was thinking of: [Abi Burton](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abi_Burton), an English rubgy union player who suffered from [autoimmune encephalitis](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autoimmune_encephalitis) in 2022, leading to seizures and seemingly psychotic episodes. The BBC has had several articles about her case and I’m not sure which one I read. Here’s a [video interview with her](https://www.bbc.com/sport/av/rugby-union/64889640). ---
**Author:** ![Isilder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/cc9497/32.png) [@Isilder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Isilder)\ **Post date:** [April 2, 2023, 1:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/looking-for-recent-news-story-2022-23-about-young-female-athlete-from-ireland-or-the-uk-who-suffered-personality-change-before-diagnosis-and-treatment/981998/3 "2023-04-02T01:11:55Z")
> [@bibliophage](#): > > an English rubgy union player who suffered from [autoimmune encephalitis](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autoimmune_encephalitis) in 2022, leading to seizures and seemingly psychotic episodes Worth noting that the top cause of encephalitis which isn’t directly due to a pathogen, is ovarian terratoma. So they may well have assumed its due to problems down there rather than purely auto-immune. Ovarian terratoma could be triggered by a pathogen, eg the ovarian terratoma may be brought on by a virus … eg HPV… the genital warts… something in the warts virus family. See [Paraneoplastic Encephalitis, Psychiatric Symptoms, and Hypoventilation in Ovarian Teratoma - PMC](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2245881/)