Caseras Xavier, Mataix-Cols David, Giampietro Vincent, Rimes Katharine A, Brammer Michael, Zelaya Fernando, Chalder Trudie, Godfrey Emma L
Unitat de Psicologia Mèdica, Institut de Neurociències, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, Barcelona, Spain.
Psychosom Med. 2006 Nov-Dec;68(6):947-55. doi: 10.1097/01.psy.0000242770.50979.5f. Epub 2006 Nov 1.
Up to 90% of patients with chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS) report substantial cognitive difficulties. However, objective evidence supporting these claims is inconsistent. The present functional magnetic resonance imaging study examined the neural correlates of working memory in patients with CFS compared with controls.
Seventeen patients with CFS and 12 healthy control subjects were scanned while performing a parametric version of the n-back task (0-, 1-, 2-, and 3-back).
Both groups performed comparably well and activated the verbal working memory network during all task levels. However, during the 1-back condition, patients with CFS showed greater activation than control subjects in medial prefrontal regions, including the anterior cingulate gyrus. Conversely, on the more challenging conditions, patients with CFS demonstrated reduced activation in dorsolateral prefrontal and parietal cortices. Furthermore, on the 2- and 3-back conditions, patients but not control subjects significantly activated a large cluster in the right inferior/medial temporal cortex. Trend analyses of task load demonstrated statistically significant differences in brain activation between the two groups as the demands of the task increased.
These results suggest that patients with CFS show both quantitative and qualitative differences in activation of the working memory network compared with healthy control subjects. It remains to be determined whether these findings stay stable after successful treatment.
高达90%的慢性疲劳综合征（CFS）患者报告存在严重的认知困难。然而，支持这些说法的客观证据并不一致。本功能磁共振成像研究检查了CFS患者与对照组相比工作记忆的神经相关性。
17名CFS患者和12名健康对照者在执行n-back任务（0-、1-、2-和3-back）的参数版本时接受扫描。
两组在所有任务水平上表现相当，并激活了言语工作记忆网络。然而，在1-back条件下，CFS患者在内侧前额叶区域，包括前扣带回，比对照者表现出更强的激活。相反，在更具挑战性的条件下，CFS患者在背外侧前额叶和顶叶皮质的激活减少。此外，在2-back和3-back条件下，患者而非对照者在右侧颞叶下部/内侧皮质显著激活了一个大的簇。任务负荷的趋势分析表明，随着任务需求的增加，两组之间的大脑激活存在统计学上的显著差异。
这些结果表明，与健康对照者相比，CFS患者在工作记忆网络激活方面存在数量和质量上的差异。这些发现是否在成功治疗后保持稳定仍有待确定。
