How chronic fatigue can effect the brain.

[cc120]

Scientists at the Stanford University School of Medicine have found specific changes in the brains, particularly the white matter, of patients with chronic fatigue syndrome, or CFS.

Patients with CFS have dealt with a number of misunderstandings due to their condition, from people who think the affected person is a hypochondriac, to thinking they are just lazy. These findings are a first step to validating the experience of chronic fatigue....

MRI images revealed that patients with CFS had less white matter in the brain overall than healthy patients. White matter consists myelinated axons, the cells responsible for carrying messages throughout the nervous system. Researchers weren’t entirely surprised by this finding, as CFS has long been thought to be caused by chronic inflammation, and inflammation is known to be harmful to white matter.

- Full article at: drlam.com/blog/chronic-fati...

[jellynpain]

Wow, does this mean there will finally be some defined information for Dr's that treat patients poorly with their beliefs of purely somatic In CFS/ME....really hope so.

I really hope Neurologist 's throughout the UK are fed this info and required to acknowledge it.

X

[Hillwoman]

This is a very interesting finding, but it's not the first neurological proof that has been found to support the existence of ME as a biological condition. There have been quite a few studies over the years, but promising lines of research tend to be strangled at birth. I know, because I've been involved in a couple of them as a patient.

The problem is that psychiatry early on claimed ownership of this condition, to the extent that in the UK any clinical researcher trying to claim a centrally-funded grant for their work on ME must (so far as I know, this is still the case) submit it to a panel that includes a representative of the psychiatric profession. If the research proposal is entirely biological in its focus, it is very likely to get the thumbs down from that panel member. If the proposal consequently does not gain enough 'points' in favour, it will not be awarded a grant.

[cc120 in reply to Hillwoman]

Very interesting.