The brain has centers for speech, movement, sensation, and also more complex functions such as thinking, memory, and personality. The brain relays commands and messages to other areas of the nervous system and receives information from these areas, as well. The brain blends together all this information so that persons can interact with their environment. Between the brain and the spinal cord is the brain stem. The brain stem contains nerve cells that control the muscles of eye movement, facial expression, speaking, swallowing, hearing and balance.
Muscles attach to bones and when they contract they enable a person to move.
Sensory information is also relayed from these areas through contacts in the spinal cord and brain stem to the sensory centers of the brain. There are several possible ways that lupus can damage the nervous system. There may be an immune system attack on the nervous system because of antibodies that are produced. When lupus affects the nervous system, the type of symptom and the distribution of complaints will depend on what area of the nervous system is involved and on what sensory and motor pathways are damaged. When there is more general involvement of the brain, a patient may demonstrate personality changes and psychiatric disorders.