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Chaudhuri A, Condon BR, Gow JW, Brennan D, Hadley DM.

Clinical Physics.

Fatigue is a common symptom of neurological diseases that affect basal ganglia function. We used proton magnetic resonance spectroscopy ( H MRS) to study the metabolic functions of the basal ganglia in chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS) to test the hypothesis that fatigue in CFS may have a neurogenic component. H MRS of left basal ganglia was carried out in eight non-psychiatric patients with CFS and their results were compared to age- and sex-matched healthy asymptomatic healthy controls. A highly significant increase in the spectra from choline-containing compounds was seen in the CFS patient group ( < 0.001). In the absence of regional structural or inflammatory pathology, increased choline resonance in CFS may be an indicator of higher cell membrane turnover due to gliosis or altered intramembrane signalling.

PMID: 12598734 [PubMed - in process]