Association between Inflammation and Chronic Fatigue Syndrome in Parkinson’s Disease 2025, Nikitina et al

Objective.
To study the prevalence and associations of chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS) with other clinical and neuropsychological manifestations of Parkinson’s disease (PD) and serum inflammatory markers and genetic polymorphisms.

Materials and methods.
The study involved 533 patients with PD. All patients underwent clinical neurological examination and neuropsychological testing using validated questionnaires: the Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale, the Beck Depression Inventory II, the Montreal Cognitive Assessment Scale, the Apathy Scale, the SAQ questionnaire to assess the number of daytime sleep attacks, and scales for assessing autonomic disorders in patients with PD. Fatigue was assessed using the Fatigue Severity Scale (FSS). Serum concentrations of a group of inflammatory markers (slCAM-1, sVCAM-1, NCAM, CCL5, PAI-1, and MPO) were assessed in 144 PD patients. A case-control study of CCL5 (rs2107538) and PAI-1 (rs2227631) gene polymorphisms was performed in relation to the development of PD and in groups differing in terms of the presence/absence of CFS in patients with PD. In addition, the association of these polymorphisms with variation in the serum levels of the corresponding proteins was studied. Genotyping of the CCL5 (rs2107538) and PAI-1 (rs2227631) gene polymorphisms was performed using real-time PCR with TaqMan probes.

Results.
CFS was present in 66.7% of cases in the group of PD patients. In addition, non-motor symptoms were more common in patients with CFS, i.e., emotional-affective, cognitive, and autonomic disorders and pain.

A strong correlation was found between the severity of CFS, assessed in points on the FSS questionnaire and the serum CCL5, sVCAM-1, NCAM, and slCAM-1 concentrations. In newly diagnosed patients with PD who were not taking antiparkinsonian drugs at the time of the study and had CFS, stronger correlations were noted between serum inflammatory markers and the severity of the signs of CFS.

Comparison of the distributions of genotypes and alleles of the CCL5 (rs2107538) and PAI-1 (rs2227631) gene polymorphisms in the PD and control groups revealed a number of differences (p < 0.05). However, the rs2107538 and rs2227631 polymorphisms studied here did not affect the variability of serum CCL5 or PAI-1 protein levels; nor did they affect the development of CFS in patients with PD.

Conclusions.
CFS was common in PD, and patients with PD and CFS were characterized by elevated levels of serum markers CCL5, sVCAM-1, slCAM-1, and NCAM, indicating the importance of the inflammatory component in the development of neurodegenerative disease. In addition, the clinical course of PD in patients with CFS was burdened by other non-motor manifestations, including emotional-affective, cognitive, and autonomic disorders and pain. These results highlight the potential contribution of the inflammatory component to the development of PD-associated fatigue, starting from the earliest clinical stages of the disease.

Association between Inflammation and Chronic Fatigue Syndrome in Parkinson’s Disease | Neuroscience and Behavioral Physiology

 

Tell me you don’t understand what (ME/)CFS is without telling me that you don’t understand what (ME/)CFS is…

 

I don’t have the cognitive bandwidth to read the full article currently, but my first thought is do the authors understand the distinction between the symptom ‘chronic fatigue’ and the condition ‘Chronic Fatigue Syndrome’ ie ME/CFS?