Hyperintense sensorimotor T1 spin echo MRI is associated with brainstem abnormality in CFS, 2018, Barnden et al

I always feel bad about being unexcited so often. But my excitement about ME papers is no different from the way it was about rheumatoid arthritis papers. Nineteen out of twenty papers are boring or bad. But all you need is one good one!



There seems to be less myelin in the brainstem in ME. I would not suggest even trying to decide what that might mean in terms of 'more' or 'less' of any signalling capacity or in terms of what causes what. All we ned it to be is an objective finding (that will probably not change after CBT).
What they seem to be saying is that whether you are healthy or have ME the less myelination you have in the brainstem the more you have in these sensorimotor cortex areas. There is a suggestion that this is how the brain somehow 'balances out' its activity. It might be a bit like finding that plants with very short stems tend to have long leaves - indicating that there is some general rule about the relative levels of myelination in the two areas.

On top of that they found that PWME fall to the end of the spectrum with low myelination in brain stem and high myelination in cortex. One way to explain that would be that something has interfered with brainstem leading to loss of myelin and that the cortex develops more myelin because of the balancing rule.

Thanks for your interpretations. Do you know of any research on what causes such loss in myelin in the brain/brainstem?
 
Michael's response is very interesting too:



He talks about how the part of the brain highlighted in this study 'samples' circulating cytokines, and links everything to astrocytes and microglia.

I definitely get the sense that we're onto something that might be elucidated soon.
 
I understood in the paper, indeed, the brainstem signal wasn't quite expected, so maybe they were hoping to find something else but found this. If I remember correctly they are suggesting another technique to follow this up. So, taken together, another study should go on as Michael vanElzekker suggests?
 
I understood in the paper, indeed, the brainstem signal wasn't quite expected, so maybe they were hoping to find something else but found this. If I remember correctly they are suggesting another technique to follow this up. So, taken together, another study should go on as Michael vanElzekker suggests?

I think so. I'm trying not to get excited but it looks interesting.
 
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