Study shows chronic fatigue associated with abnormal brain connectivity at rest

Patients with chronic fatigue have decreased signaling and communication between specific brain regions when the brain is at rest, and less effective connectivity between these regions strongly correlates with greater fatigue, according to the results of a new study published in Brain Connectivity.

Charles Gay, Roland Staud, and colleagues, University of Florida college of Medicine, Gainesville, studied the association between fatigue and altered resting-state connectivity in patients with myalgicencephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue syndrome using functional magnetic resonance imaging.

The researchers used two methods: comparing data on resting-state brain networks; and analyzing cerebral blood flow in selected brain regions.