Cook D B, Lange G, DeLuca J, Natelson B H
Department of Neurosciences, UMDNJ-New Jersey Medical School, Newark, NJ 07103, USA.
Int J Neurosci. 2001 Mar;107(1-2):1-6. doi: 10.3109/00207450109149754.
Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (CFS) is an unexplained illness that is characterized by severe fatigue. Some have suggested that CFS is a "functional somatic syndrome" in which symptoms of fatigue are inappropriately attributed to a serious illness. However, brain magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) data suggest that there may be an organic abnormality associated with CFS. To understand further the significance of brain MRI abnormalities, we examined the relationship between MRI identified brain abnormalities and self-reported physical functional status in 48 subjects with CFS who underwent brain MR imaging and completed the Medical Outcomes Study SF-36. Brain MR images were examined for the presence of abnormalities based on 5 general categories previously shown to be sensitive to differentiating CFS patients from healthy controls. There were significant negative relationships between the presence of brain abnormalities and both the physical functioning (PF) (rho=-.31, p=.03), and physical component summary PCS (rho=-.32, p=.03) subscales of the SF-36. CFS patients with MRI identified brain abnormalities scored significantly lower on both PF (t(1,46) =2.3, p=.026) and the PCS (t(1,41) =2.4, p=.02) than CFS subjects without an identified brain abnormality. When adjusted for age differences only the PF analysis remained significant. However, the effect sizes for both analyses were large indicating meaningful differences in perceived functional status between the groups. These results demonstrate that the presence of brain abnormalities in CFS are significantly related to subjective reports of physical function and that CFS subjects with MRI brain abnormalities report being more physically impaired than those patients without brain abnormalities.
慢性疲劳综合征（CFS）是一种病因不明的疾病，其特征为严重疲劳。一些人认为CFS是一种“功能性躯体综合征”，其中疲劳症状被不恰当地归因于一种严重疾病。然而，脑磁共振成像（MRI）数据表明，CFS可能存在器质性异常。为了进一步了解脑MRI异常的意义，我们在48例接受脑MRI检查并完成医学结局研究简明健康状况调查量表（SF - 36）的CFS患者中，研究了MRI识别出的脑异常与自我报告的身体功能状态之间的关系。根据先前显示对区分CFS患者与健康对照敏感的5个一般类别，检查脑MR图像中是否存在异常。脑异常的存在与SF - 36的身体功能（PF）（rho = -0.31，p = 0.03）和身体成分汇总量表（PCS）（rho = -0.32，p = 0.03）分量表之间存在显著负相关。MRI识别出脑异常的CFS患者在PF（t(1,46) = 2.3，p = 0.026）和PCS（t(1,41) = 2.4，p = 0.02）上的得分显著低于未识别出脑异常的CFS受试者。仅对年龄差异进行校正后，PF分析仍具有显著性。然而，两项分析的效应量都很大，表明两组之间在感知功能状态上存在有意义的差异。这些结果表明，CFS中脑异常的存在与身体功能的主观报告显著相关，并且MRI脑异常的CFS受试者报告的身体损伤比无脑异常的患者更严重。
