CFS (Chronic Fatigue Syndrome) Research Briefs
The following studies are all available on PubMed, a listing
of research journal articles
maintained by the U.S. National Institutes of Health. Authors,
titles, publication information and UI number are included at
the end of each summary. You can read the abstracts by going
to the PubMed website at http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/PubMed/
and inserting the UI number of the article into the search
window.
STUDY SUGGESTS ORGANIC BRAIN DYSFUNCTION IN CFS
Researchers studied CFS patients and sedentary controls
with tests designed to
measure instinctive and learned reaction to sensory
stimulation, using sound
associated with a puff of air directed toward the eyeball
in order to cause the
subject to blink. They found that the CFS patients
reacted normally to both the
sound and the airpuff, but "displayed impaired
acquisition of the eyeblink
response using a delayed-type conditioning parameter."
In other words, the CFS
patients reacted normally to the stimuli themselves, but
were abnormally slow to
learn new reactions to stimuli. What I think this means
is that the researchers made
the sound and sent the puff of air toward the subject's
eye at the same time, and
after this was done a few times, normally the subjects
should have instinctively
learned to blink as soon as they heard the sound; but the
CFS patients were not
able to do this as a normal person would. The researchers
say that this indicates
an "associative deficit," and that CFS patients are
probably suffering from "organic
brain dysfunction within a defined neural substrate."
UI number: 98263991
Authors: Servatius RJ, Tapp WN, Bergen MC, Pollett CA,
Drastal SD,
Tiersky LA, Desai P, Natelson BH
Title: "Impaired associative learning in chronic fatigue
syndrome"
Published: Neuroreport 1998 Apr 20; 9(6):1153-1157
RESEARCHERS FIND CFS PATIENTS DON'T WALK NORMALLY
Researchers studied the spatial (movement) and temporal
(speed) parameters of
gait (walk) of 12 CFS patients. They found significant
abnormalities in symmetry,
which has to do with the movement of one side of the body
as compared to the
other, as well as other abnormalities. They also found
that these abnormalities
did not change from the beginning to the end of the
exercise period, and so
could not have been produced by fatigue. The authors say
that this study
strengthens the hypothesis that a dysfunction of the
central nervous system plays a
part in the onset of CFS.
UI Number: 98202319
Authors: Saggini R, Pizzigallo E, Vecchiet J, Macellari V,
Giacomozzi C.
Title: "Alteration of spatial-temporal parameters of gait in
chronic
fatigue syndrome patients."
Publication: J Neurol Sci 1998 Jan 21; 154(1):18-25.
--
Jen :)
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Jen Munn's CFIDS Site
http://www.geocities.com/HotSprings/5762/
Jen's Walk on the Web
http://www.munn.com/~jmunn/
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