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Lookup NU author(s): Dr Andreas FinkelmeyerORCiD, Dr Jiabao He, Dr Laura Maclachlan, Professor Andrew BlamireORCiD, Emerita Professor Julia Newton
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY 4.0).
© 2018 Finkelmeyer et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. Symptoms of orthostatic intolerance (OI) are common in Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (CFS) and similar disorders. These symptoms may relate to individual differences in intracranial compliance and cerebral blood perfusion. The present study used phase-contrast, quantitative flow magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) to determine intracranial compliance based on arterial inflow, venous outflow and cerebrospinal fluid flow along the spinal canal into and out of the cranial cavity. Flow-sensitive Alternating Inversion Recovery (FAIR) Arterial Spin Labelling was used to measure cerebral blood perfusion at rest. Forty patients with CFS and 10 age and gender matched controls were scanned. Severity of symptoms of OI was determined from self-report using the Autonomic Symptom Profile. CFS patients reported significantly higher levels of OI (p < .001). Within the patient group, higher severity of OI symptoms were associated with lower intracranial compliance (r = -.346, p = .033) and higher resting perfusion (r = .337, p = .038). In both groups intracranial compliance was negatively correlated with cerebral perfusion. There were no significant differences between the groups in intracranial compliance or perfusion. In patients with CFS, low intracranial compliance and high resting cerebral perfusion appear to be associated with an increased severity of symptoms of OI. This may signify alterations in the ability of the cerebral vasculature to cope with changes to systemic blood pressure due to orthostatic stress, but this may not be specific to CFS.
Author(s): Finkelmeyer A, He J, MacLachlan L, Blamire AM, Newton JL
Publication type: Article
Publication status: Published
Journal: PLoS ONE
Year: 2018
Volume: 13
Issue: 7
Online publication date: 03/07/2018
Acceptance date: 19/06/2018
Date deposited: 16/07/2018
ISSN (electronic): 1932-6203
Publisher: Public Library of Science
URL: https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0200068
DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0200068
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