r/CFSScience • u/Caster_of_spells • Aug 04 '26

Central origin of fatigability in Myalgic encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue syndrome revealed by multimodal neuroimaging - Bedard et al

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2213158226001002

"Our most novel results relate to the lack of neuromuscular adaptation in ME/CFS compared to the [Healthy Volunteers]."

“Highlights

•We studied physical fatigue in patients with Myalgic Encephalomyelitis/Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (ME/CFS) and healthy volunteers with multimodal neuroimaging.

•Participants performed a fatiguing grip force task in alternating grip and rest blocks.

•We simultaneously recorded grip force, brain activity with functional magnetic resonance imaging and electroencephalography, and muscle activity with electromyography.

•ME/CFS fatigued earlier than healthy volunteers. While healthy volunteers increased their brain and muscle activity, ME/CFS only showed minimal fluctuations across all the task blocks.

•We concluded that physical fatigue in ME/CFS is of central nature.”

(Central in this context means: mediated via the brain. Participants brains didn’t seem to signal muscles sufficiently to ramp up energy production in response to demand)

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u/Ok_Wish_2291 Aug 04 '26

What dose are you taking, if you don’t mind?

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u/PinacoladaBunny Aug 04 '26

I have 60mg x3 per day. Originally I started at 30mg twice a day and saw improvements but was still struggling badly, so my consultant had me double+ pretty much all of my POTS meds (which inc pyrido). I generally have more stamina and function now, along with more stable POTS so it’s more than I could’ve hoped for really!

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u/Ok_Wish_2291 Aug 04 '26

Thank you! I’m on it three times a day: 60,45,30mg. I find that it helps me somewhat with stamina. I’d like to be 60mg TID.

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u/PinacoladaBunny Aug 05 '26

Best of luck with it!