Multimodal and simultaneous assessments of brain and spinal fluid abnormalities in chronic fatigue syndrome and the effects of psychiatric comorbidity

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 and 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.

Figure 1

Actual data as well as means ± SEM of ventricular lactate values for controls and CFS. The difference between groups was significant (p < .05). Extreme values have been highlighted.

Figure 2

Actual data as well as means ± SEM of cortical glutathione values for controls and CFS. The difference between groups was significant (p < .05). Extreme values have been highlighted.