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A 23-year-old woman is brought in by her partner with three weeks of escalating persecutory beliefs, agitation and rambling speech. Over the past week he has noticed her lips and jaw moving constantly when she is not talking, movements she cannot stop, and yesterday she had a witnessed generalised convulsion. Her temperature is 37.9°C and her pulse has swung between 48 and 130 beats per minute during the afternoon. She has never taken any psychotropic drug, and computed tomography of the brain is normal. Which one of the following investigations is most likely to establish the diagnosis?
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