I have the following text in a document I often view in Editorial:
L’esprit has other meanings as well, but, of course, so does *mind*—and, for that matter, in English at least, so does *brain*.
Editorial emphases everything from the beginning of “mind” to the end of “brain”. I’m guessing that it is the lack of what Editorial sees as an approved word-break character, causing it to ignore the asterisk after “mind”. A space, comma, or period, for example, will cause the second asterisk to end italicization. But a bracket, brace, or parenthesis does not. (Nor am I sure that they should, since I don’t know what they would mean without a space in front of them.)
I notice that the markdown interpreter in the preview as I type this post recognizes an asterisk followed by a Chicago em dash as a valid place to end italicization:
L’esprit has other meanings as well, but, of course, so does mind—and, for that matter, in English at least, so does brain.