Cortical hypoactivation during resting EEG suggests central nervous system pathology in patients with chronic fatigue syndrome

Abstract

We investigated central fatigue in 50 patients with chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS) and 50 matched healthy controls (HC). Resting state EEG was collected from 19 scalp locations during a 3 min, eyes-closed condition. Current densities were localized using exact low-resolution electromagnetic tomography (eLORETA). The Multidimensional Fatigue Inventory (MFI-20) and the Fatigue Severity Scale (FSS) were administered to all participants. Independent t-tests and linear regression analyses were used to evaluate group differences in current densities, followed by statistical non-parametric mapping (SnPM) correction procedures. Significant differences were found in the delta (1-3 Hz) and beta-2 (19-21 Hz) frequency bands. Delta sources were found predominately in the frontal lobe, while beta-2 sources were found in the medial and superior parietal lobe. Left-lateralized, frontal delta sources were associated with a clinical reduction in motivation. The implications of abnormal cortical sources in patients with CFS are discussed.

A systematic review of neurological impairments in myalgic encephalomyelitis/ chronic fatigue syndrome using neuroimaging techniques

“…Females made up the largest proportion of participants. There were only 10 studies which reported race, where majority of the participants were Caucasian [12,19,21,26,27,37,41,47,48,52]. Mean age across all studies was 40.9 years for ME/CFS patients and 39.07 years for HCs.…”

“…In all twin studies, levels of zygosity were assessed and ascertained at 99.9% [12,21,27]. 47 of the 55 identified papers included participants that fulfilled the requirements of being diagnosed with the Fukuda criteria [12,14,[16][17][18][19][21][22][23][24][25][26][27][28]30,31,[34][35][36][37][38][39][40][41][43][44][45][46][47][48][49][50][51][52][53][54][55][56][57][58][59][60][61]. Three of the papers used the more stringent CCC criteria to classify ME/CFS patients [15,29,42].…”

A neuro-inflammatory model can explain the onset, symptoms and flare-ups of myalgic encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue syndrome

“…1 There was plenty of literature available, especially more recently, which added growing support for a neuro-inflammatory concept to explain ME/CFS. 5,6 Most of the evidence involved either brain scanning techniques [7][8][9][10][11] or cerebrospinal fluid studies of ME/CFS patients, [12][13][14][15] but it was evident that the brain scanning technology being used was simply not sophisticated enough to detect chronic and fluctuating inflammation in the brains of ME/CFS patients that mirrored the chronic and fluctuating symptoms described above.…”

Chronic fatigue syndrome in the routine hematology practice

“…Причина может заключаться в нарушении работы центральной нервной системы. Так, при электроэнцефалографии в группе пациентов с СХУ выявлена умеренная гипоактивация коры по сравнению с данными здоровых людей [7]. Возможно и некоторое снижение индивидуальной эмоциональной устойчивости, так как у многих пациентов появление симптомов совпадает со стрессорным фактором (травма, семейные сложности и др.)…”