Een studie van Natelson, Shungu e.a. bevestigt bevindingen van studies m.b.t. neurologische

afwijkingen die dezelfde onderzoeksgroep in het verleden uitvoerde (klik hier, hier en hier).

De onderzochte afwijkingen hebben met name betrekking op:

• verhoogde concentraties lactaat in de hersenventrikels (wijzend op een energietekort),
• verhoogde concentraties eiwitten en/of witte bloedcellen in het hersenvocht,
• verminderde bloedtoevoer naar (specifieke delen van) de hersenen, en
• verlaagde concentraties glutathione in de hersenen (mogelijk als gevolg van oxidatieve stress).

De onderzoekers stelden tevens vast dat die afwijkingen los staan van (secondaire) depressie, etc. !

Bij de helft (13/26) van de CVS-patiënten werden 2 of meer afwijkingen vastgesteld.

Bij 20 van de 26 CVS-patiënten werden minstens één neurologische afwijkingen geconstateerd.

Dit leidt in deze studie tot de volgende conclusies:

These grouped data support our working hypothesis that

some CFS patients have an ongoing encephalopathic process responsible for their illness.

[Myalgic Encephalomyelitis] might be best applied to the subgroup of patients in Table 5

having multiple abnormalities in brain-related variables – i.e., the brain-affected group.

Het wordt hoog tijd om de twee groepen ("ME" en CVS-overig) uit elkaar te halen...

Multimodal and simultaneous assessments of brain and spinal fluid abnormalities

in chronic fatigue syndrome and the effects of psychiatric comorbidity.

J Neurol Sci. 2017 Apr 15;375:411-416. doi: 10.1016/j.jns.2017.02.046.

Natelson BH, Mao X, Stegner AJ, Lange G, Vu D, Blate M, Kang G, Soto E, Kapusuz T, Shungu DC.

Highlights

• Patients have

higher brain ventricular lactate, more abnormal spinal fluids,

lower brain GSH, and reduced cerebral blood flow

than controls

• Psychiatric comorbidity

does not influence any of these potential biological markers of CFS

• 50% of the patients had more than one of these abnormalities
• The subgroup of patients with brain abnormalities

may have an underlying encephalopathy producing their illness

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to investigate

whether CFS patients without comorbid psychiatric diagnoses

differ from CFS patients with comorbid psychiatric diagnoses and healthy control subjects

in neuropsychological performance,

the proportion with elevated spinal fluid protein or white cell counts,

cerebral blood flow (CBF), brain ventricular lactate and cortical glutathione (GSH).

The results of the study did not show any differences in any of the outcome measures

between CFS patients with and without psychiatric comorbidity,

thus indicating that psychiatric status may not be an exacerbating factor in CFS.

Importantly, significant differences were found

between the pooled samples of CFS compared to controls.

These included lower GSH and CBF, higher ventricular lactate and rates of spinal fluid abnormalities

in CFS patients compared to healthy controls.

Thirteen of 26 patients had abnormal values on two or more of these 4 brain-related variables.

These findings, which replicate the results of several of our prior studies,

support the presence of a number of neurobiological and spinal fluid abnormalities in CFS.

These results will lead to further investigation into objective biomarkers of

the disorder to advance the understanding of CFS.

http://www.jns-journal.com/article/S0022-510X(17)30142-9/abstract

Met dank aan Manja en prof. Natelson.