Email to neurologist about MRI

[Husband of]

I'm not sure MRI is used that much in the diagnosis of ME/CFS, other than looking at craniocervical instability. You are ruling out things like MS that can show on MRI.

As far as I can tell, MRI isn't that useful for ME/CFS. But I'm not really up on the research in this area.

Here's a recent review article: https://translational-medicine.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12967-020-02506-6

Here is an interesting upcoming study that came out of the one you shared
https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fneur.2022.954142/full

it's testing the hypothesis that "abnormal neurovascular coupling (NVC) may be the neurobiological origin of ME/CFS. NVC is a critical process for normal brain function, in which glutamate from an active neuron stimulates Ca2+ influx in adjacent neurons and astrocytes. In turn, increased Ca2+concentrations in both astrocytes and neurons trigger the synthesis of vascular dilator factors to increase local blood flow assuring activated neurons are supplied with their energy needs."

 

[Husband of]

This study provides a review of brain stem abnormality finding from mri studies

https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fneur.2021.769511/full

 

[wabi-sabi]

This study

That certainly looks like a good one to send to your neurologist.

The more targeted papers like this you can give the doc are better, since even when they want to be helpful, doctors tend to have very little time. Review articles like this pack in the most high quality info.

 

[Husband of]

Looking at studies since the review studies were done
This study https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2213158220302035
found T1w/T2w values were significantly higher in ME/CFS in white matter tracts involved in sensorimotor communication, sensorimotor gyral white matter, and subcortical grey matter structures involved with motor control.
.... more to come, will edit post as I find them

edit: In Retrospect I think I will just mention the two review studies and the Swedish study and mention that there are probably more studies since the studies included in the review studies because interest in this area has increased in Recent years (the main review study looked at studies up until July 2018)