Brains of People With Chronic Fatigue Syndrome Offer Clues About Disorder - New York Times: Well (2014)



Brains of People With Chronic Fatigue Syndrome Offer Clues About Disorder - New York Times: Well (2014) is one of many ME/CFS articles by David Tuller.

The images document neuroinflammation which causes many neurological symptoms experienced by patients.

Plainly seen is the result of neuroinflammation's impact on the brain.

Brain imaging studies mentioned in article

 * 2014, The Stanford ME/CFS Initiative, directed by Dr. Jose Montoya and working with Dr. Michael Zeineh and colleagues, studied the brains of patients with chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS) and healthy people and found distinct differences between the two groups. Radiology researchers have discovered that the brains of patients with CFS have diminished white matter and white matter abnormalities in the right hemisphere.


 * 2014, A Japanese PET scan study looked at neuroinflammation in 9 patients with ME/CFS and 10 controls. They measured a protein expressed by activated microglia, and found that values in the cingulate cortex, hippocampus, amygdala, thalamus, midbrain, and pons were 45%–199% higher in ME/CFS patients than in healthy controls. The values in the amygdala, thalamus, and midbrain positively correlated with cognitive impairment score, the values in the cingulate cortex and thalamus positively correlated with pain score, and the value in the hippocampus positively correlated with depression score.

Myalgic encephalomyelitis
Myalgic encephalomyelitis (ME) was the original name for chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS); the names are used interchangeably or with the acronym ME/CFS. The name ME was coined by Dr. Melvin Ramsay following the 1955 Royal Free Hospital outbreak and is a portmanteau of several of the key signs and symptoms of the disease: myalgic (muscle pain), encephalo (brain), myel (spinal cord), itis (inflammation). The central nervous system (brain and spinal cord) are inflamed.
 * Myalgic adj. - of or relating to myalgia. Is muscle pain.


 * Encephalo: Refers to the brain.


 * Myel: Relating to the spinal cord.


 * Itis: Inflammation.

Criterion defining ME, CFS, and ME/CFS
Patients that meet the International Consensus Criteria (ICC) defining ME are usually more severely impaired than patients that meet the Canadian Consensus Criteria (CCC) defining ME/CFS, or the minimum core symptoms needed to diagnose patients with Systemic Exertion Intolerance Disease (SEID); also an ME/CFS criterion. Researchers believe all patients meeting these criterion, including Fukuda criteria (with post-exertional malaise "option") defining CFS, are experiencing brain inflammation.