Interesting!
How did it work out with the Bromantane?
I am not quite understanding your statement. Can you quantify your improvement in symptoms a bit more precisely please. Is it your brain fog that has improved, energy levels, PEM resistance?
I find that when talking about ME/CFS improvements, it is good to indicate those improvements on the ME/CFS severity scale of
mild, moderate and severe. Any improvement that can move you up one level of that scale (eg, from moderate to mild) I consider a major improvement. Any improvement that moves you up a smaller amount, I view as a more minor improvement.
Your guess is as good as mine on this. Some
brain autopsies of ME/CFS patients have shown traces of enterovirus infection in the brain tissues (whereas none was found in the controls). So presumably some brain inflammation and the attendant microglial activation will be needed to keep this brain infection in check, assuming such brain infections are common in ME/CFS.
However, it possible that the brain inflammation and microglial activation are too ramped up, and are more fierce than is necessary to keep the brain infection in check. Brain inflammation can become ramped up when there is infection in other parts of the body (eg the gut), as when the
vagus nerve senses infection in other parts of the body, it automatically signals to the brain, and the brain then ramps up brain inflammation. In this way, some gut dysbiosis (gut infection) might be increasing brain inflammation to higher than is necessary.
There is also the situation known as
immune priming, where the immune system becomes oversensitive, and thus turns itself on too easily and too fiercely. Some researchers think immune priming may be involved in ME/CFS. See the posts
here,
here and
here for more info on immune priming.
Autoimmunity (which the rituximab studies indicate is very likely involved in ME/CFS) may also be causing unnecessary brain inflammation.
In summary: it's possible that the microglial activation / brain inflammation is simply keeping a brain infection in check; but it is also possible that the brain inflammation is unnecessarily ramped up due to one or more of the factors detailed above.
By the way, in terms of reducing brain inflammation and the attendant microglial activation, you may want to look at the 29 supplements detailed in my thread here:
Completely eliminated my severe anxiety symptoms with three supplements! These 29 supplements I found all helped reduce my anxiety levels; I believe my generalized anxiety disorder was underpinned by brain inflammation, and believe the reason most of these supplements worked to reduce anxiety is because they reduce brain inflammation. Supplements like turmeric are well known for their anti-neuroinflammation effects. I also think N-acetyl-glucosamine is likely a potent brain inflammation reducer.
Some of the 29 supplements, such as the probiotics and prebiotics, likely work to reduce brain inflammation indirectly, by reducing gut dysbiosis and gut inflammation. By the vagus nerve mechanism explained above, reducing gut inflammation can in turn reduce neuroinflammation.
Another important angle on brain inflammation is the connection between the
dopaminergic system and neuroinflammation. Dr Andrew Miller's studies suggest low dopamine may increase the effects of inflammation: ie, low dopamine levels in the brain (in the basal ganglia) could cause a relatively benign mild inflammatory state to become something really problematic. See
Cort's blog article on Dr Andrew Miller's dopamine research, and
this second article also.
So if you can raise dopamine, you may lessen brain inflammation. This may be why very low dose amisulpride has been shown to have benefits for ME/CFS, as this drug works via stimulating the dopamine D2 and D3 receptors. See:
Amisulpride — A Multipurpose Drug for ME/CFS I take 12.5 mg of amisulpride every day, and find it does help reduce some ME/CFS symptoms.
I posted a list of dopaminergic drugs and supplements
here. However, most of these dopaminergic drugs probably will not work well in ME/CFS, because Dr Andrew Miller says ME/CFS may involve problems with the actual synthesis of dopamine, meaning there is a shortage of dopamine available. In the second Dr Andrew Miller article it says:
As a result of reading about Dr Andrew Miller's work, I recently ordered the Russian drug
bromantane, which works by up-regulating expression of the enzymes which synthesize dopamine. Ref:
1 Bromantane is quite unique in this respect, in that it increases dopamine by promoting the manufacture of dopamine. I am hoping bromantane will be beneficial not only for reducing ME/CFS neuroinflammation, but also for treating my anhedonia and depression, which may be due to low dopamine. I will be testing out bromantane in the coming months.