Aberrant recruitment of the striatum & insula are associated with recalling and suppressing fatigue- and anger-related memories in CFS/ME, 2026, Rimes

Dolphin

Dolphin

Senior Member (Voting Rights)
Accepted manuscript

Aberrant recruitment of the striatum and insula are associated with recalling and suppressing fatigue- and anger-related memories in people with chronic fatigue syndrome/myalgic encephalomyelitis​

Katharine A Rimes ,
Vincent Giampietro ,
Trudie Chalder ,
Roland Zahn ,
Andrew Simmons ,
Sean James Fallon
Brain Communications, fcag101, https://doi.org/10.1093/braincomms/fcag101
Published:

26 March 2026
Article history


Abstract​

Research suggests that people with chronic fatigue syndrome tend to suppress emotions more than healthy individuals.

However, whether there are also changes in the neural substrates of emotional regulation in people with chronic fatigue syndrome remain unexplored.

Specifically, it is unclear whether there is a neural delineation in how fatigue and anger-related memories are recalled or supressed in people with chronic fatigue syndrome.

This study investigated this hypothesis using functional magnetic resonance imaging.

We compared blood oxygen level-dependent signal changes between people with chronic fatigue syndrome (N=20) and matched controls (N= 20) during a novel task that involved the recall or suppression of fatigue (or anger-related memories).

Results revealed a dissociation in the contribution of striatal subregions and the insula when recalling and suppressing anger and fatigue-related memories according to diagnostic status.

Principally, patients showed higher blood oxygen level-dependent signal in the left and right rostral caudate during the suppression of fatigue and anger-related memories, respectively.

Different patterns were also observed in the way each group recruited the posterior putamen when recalling (or suppressing) anger or fatigue-related memories.

In contrast to its prominent suppression in striatal regions, blood oxygen level-dependent signal in the insula was increased in the patient group during the active recall of anger or fatigue-related memories.

Cumulatively, these results reveal that chronic fatigue syndrome is associated with demonstrable, physiological changes in the way emotional information is processed and implicate the rostral caudate and insula as targets for further investigation.

Click to expand...
 
Dolphin said:
Cumulatively, these results reveal that chronic fatigue syndrome is associated with demonstrable, physiological changes in the way emotional information is processed and implicate the rostral caudate and insula as targets for further investigation.
Click to expand...

Er no. It shows that if you ask a load of patients about sensitive subjects and a load of controls the patients will have different sorts of thoughts, obviously, because they are patients in a study rather than controls in a study. They are having their minds picked by voyeurs, whereas the controls are just there for a day out.
 
"Funding

This study was supported by pilot funding to Katharine Rimes from the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) Mental Health Biomedical Research Centre at South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust and King’s College London. Trudie Chalder and Andy Simmons received support from the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) Mental Health Biomedical Research Centre at South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust and King’s College London."

Perhaps we could highlight to the Mental Health Biomedical Research Centre the damage to the mental health of ME/CFS patients this sort of study causes? (I'm joking, I can't imagine there is any point.)
 
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