The early days of chronic fatigue syndrome research; Clues to functional weakness mechanism from the nature of onset
29 Dec, 11 | by BMJ Group
In this first podcast of 2012 editor Matthew Kiernan talks about JNNP’s new impact commentaries - a series which will explore influential papers from the journal. A paper by Simon Wessely (King’s College London) comparing postviral fatigue with that of neuromuscular and affective disorders is the first covered, and he and Matthew discuss this seminal research.
Also, Jon Stone (University of Edinburgh) explains what his investigation into the nature of functional weakness onset indicates about the mechanism of the condition.
See also:
A MODERN PERSPECTIVE ON SOME OF THE MOST HIGHLY CITED JNNP PAPERS OF ALL TIME: The nature of fatigue: a comparison of chronic “postviral” fatigue with neuromuscular and affective disorders
What is impact?
Functional weakness: clues to mechanism from the nature of onset
I am curious what the distinguished Prof. Wessely’s thoughts are on the distinguishing of postviral fatigue with the proper Myalgic Encephalomyelitis as defined here (http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1365-2796.2011.02428.x/abstract)
Thank you.
Chris
January 16th, 2012 at 3:31 pm
The trouble with the work by Wessely is that he identified the problem of some chronic fatigue systems as not resting solely in muscle. He then leapt into concluding that they were a subsequence of the cognitive part of the brain. The fact that the human nervous system is made up of autonomic systems not directly linked to cognition let alone that consciousness itself is a tiny fraction of even the cortex seems to have escaped him?
Dr Bridget Price
January 16th, 2012 at 8:53 pm