• Welcome to Phoenix Rising!

    Created in 2008, Phoenix Rising is the largest and oldest forum dedicated to furthering the understanding of, and finding treatments for, complex chronic illnesses such as chronic fatigue syndrome (ME/CFS), fibromyalgia, long COVID, postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome (POTS), mast cell activation syndrome (MCAS), and allied diseases.

    To become a member, simply click the Register button at the top right.

Jarred Younger Presents: How We Can See ME/CFS Inflammation In the Brain

Messages
600
Moderator note: Posts #1-7 were moved from "Where's Jarred? :)"


edit: yuuge showdown coming in 2-3 months from younger when he will be able to test his first me cfs patients for B and T cells migration into the brain. Hes used years to make the experiment possible and there are possible treatments if this is whats going on. HCs have been looked at, they dont have migration as expected.
 
Last edited by a moderator:

Pyrrhus

Senior Member
Messages
4,172
Location
U.S., Earth
he will be able to test his first me cfs patients for B and T cells migration into the brain.

I'm really not sure what the point of this is. Neuroinflammation has nothing to do with immune cell migration into the brain.

Neuroinflammation only refers to the immune cells that live inside the brain, such as memory T cells, macrophages (also known as microglia), and mast cells. (and probably many others that have not yet been discovered)

This is just as curious as his experiment to look for increased temperature inside the brain. Unlike classical inflammation, neuroinflammation does not imply an increased temperature.

Younger may need to clarify to people when he is looking for classical Greco-Roman inflammation, not for neuroinflammation...
 
Messages
600
@Pyrrhus well he is doing 3 new experiments it seems.

One is to look for neuroinflammation / activated microglia with the radio ligand dpa-714.

Then there is the brain hyperthermia where he claims that increased energy metabolism in activated microglia (vs unactivated microglia) is causing higher brain temperatures. But you dont think there is evidence for that?

And the third experiment is the leukocyte migration / classical inflammation. I saw a recent talk with Avindra Nath where he said that some of the long covid symptoms are probably caused by this.
 

Pyrrhus

Senior Member
Messages
4,172
Location
U.S., Earth
Then there is the brain hyperthermia where he claims that increased energy metabolism in activated microglia (vs unactivated microglia) is causing higher brain temperatures. But you dont think there is evidence for that?

It is certainly possible, but has never clearly been demonstrated, that the increased metabolism of neuroinflammation leads to localized increases in temperature in parts of the brain.

But until this phenomenon has been clearly demonstrated, you can not use a finding of increased temperature as evidence of neuroinflammation.

First you have to establish that neuroinflammation comes with localized increases in temperature, without any increase in blood flow to the brain. Only then will you be able to use such a finding as potential evidence of neuroinflammation.

But unlike classical inflammation, which directly implies an increased temperature due to increased blood flow to the inflamed tissue, neuroinflammation does not imply an increased temperature due to increased blood flow.
 

Pyrrhus

Senior Member
Messages
4,172
Location
U.S., Earth
Hi @Pyrrhus
You make a good point about the nuances of classical vs neuroinflammation. But terminology aside, if Younger's lab demonstrates B and T cell migration into the brain, that'll be pretty earthshaking, no?

Yes, depending upon how much migration there is, it could indeed be earthshaking.

But previous research seems to suggest that the B and T cells are trying to migrate into the brain, but they get trapped in the perivascular spaces surrounding the brain's blood vessels. As long as the blood-brain barrier holds tight, the B and T cells will accumulate inside these perivascular spaces, but will not actually succeed at making it into the brain:
1656278537622.png



If enough immune cells accumulate inside these perivascular spaces, the enlarged perivascular space might be visible on a standard MRI. For more information, see this post:

MRI: White Matter Lesions?!
https://forums.phoenixrising.me/threads/mri-white-matter-lesions.79023/#post-2338967
 

CSMLSM

Senior Member
Messages
973
I'm really not sure what the point of this is. Neuroinflammation has nothing to do with immune cell migration into the brain.

Neuroinflammation only refers to the immune cells that live inside the brain, such as memory T cells, macrophages (also known as microglia), and mast cells. (and probably many others that have not yet been discovered)

This is just as curious as his experiment to look for increased temperature inside the brain. Unlike classical inflammation, neuroinflammation does not imply an increased temperature.

Younger may need to clarify to people when he is looking for classical Greco-Roman inflammation, not for neuroinflammation...
I disagree completely.

What he is looking for has everything to do with ME/CFS and many other conditions.

Microlglia send out cytokines and communicate with the periphery immune cells and vive versa so I do not see your points as valid. EBV likely gets into the brain via migrating B cells infected with the virus and EBV is implicated in many neurological conditions, like ME/CFS and MS.

Neuroinflammation is imaged with many targets like temperature, lactate, choline, microglia in an activated M1 state as demonstrated by his work and others.
We are in the descovery phase of how to image this stuff and is the best we have right now because of people like Dr Jarred Younger doing work like this.

He is doing great work of great significance.
 

CSMLSM

Senior Member
Messages
973
Moderator note: Posts #1-7 were moved from "Where's Jarred? :)"


edit: yuuge showdown coming in 2-3 months from younger when he will be able to test his first me cfs patients for B and T cells migration into the brain. Hes used years to make the experiment possible and there are possible treatments if this is whats going on. HCs have been looked at, they dont have migration as expected.
If you have not already you should check out his video on this from 2 years ago, has essentially the same info but with more added in a shorter period of time.
Worth a look if you liked this.
here-
Dr. Jarred Younger - Neuroinflammation in ME/CFS - YouTube
The ME Action Network Sep 9, 2019 27.19min
 
Messages
91
My spidey sense went off at a certain point in that video. He said most people with ME don't have POTS. Or maybe orthostatic intolerance. Something seemed odd about that. I wonder what the symptom set of his cohort is.



Noticed this, and his remark about you always have to ly down in a MRI
There are the upright types
 

Nord Wolf

The Northman
Messages
581
Location
New England
I was very interested in this finding, and so my neurologist ordered a brain magnetic resonance spectroscopy for me. I had the 45 minute mri done about a week and a half ago. The report came back saying there were no abnormalities found. No masses, lesions, etcetera. Even though my neurologist, endocrinologist, pain specialist, primary care, and others in my healthcare team all concur that I fit the ME/CFS profile to the tee, and all but one question on the Canadian ME/CFS diagnosis questionnaire is positive, the MRS shows nothing.

I find this interesting considering Dr. Youngers research. I wonder if the MRS images need to be read by someone who is looking more on the lines of his view, or if the images would clearly show or not no matter who was reading them...

Has anyone else here had a brain MRS done?
 

BrightCandle

Senior Member
Messages
1,152
Has anyone else here had a brain MRS done?

I had a brain MRI done near the beginning of the entire affair, paid for it privately after discussing with a few different places and specifically looking for inflammatory impacts. Clean as a whistle, they didn't find a thing wrong with my head at all, brain, ears etc. I also had a CT done of my nasal passages as well, no sign of infection despite the constant congestion.

There was no change in brain size that is being suggested in Covid nor an obvious inflammation. They might have failed to spot it but I don't have a few of these "things we know" like Cortisol - mine is normal, I did a 7 point cortisol test near the beginning and it was spot on where it should be.
 

Nord Wolf

The Northman
Messages
581
Location
New England
I had a brain MRI done near the beginning of the entire affair, paid for it privately after discussing with a few different places and specifically looking for inflammatory impacts. Clean as a whistle, they didn't find a thing wrong with my head at all, brain, ears etc.
Yes I also had another brain MRI done, which came out clear. So then we did the MRS, which supposedly looks at the chemical make up of the brain, but it was also clear.
They might have failed to spot it
Perhaps. I would think brain inflammation or any other abnormality would be easy to spot by people trained to read those images.
Alway frustrating when you hear and read these reports from docs and researchers saying they found something huge... then you get the test done and it shows nothing. o_O
 

bthompsonjr1993

Senior Member
Messages
176
Jared seems to have gone radio silent. We were supposed to hear about the B and T cell in the brain findings a month ago, at the latest, based on the timeline he gave. Anyone have any idea why he seems to have bailed on that update?
 

MonkeyMan

Senior Member
Messages
405
Jared seems to have gone radio silent. We were supposed to hear about the B and T cell in the brain findings a month ago, at the latest, based on the timeline he gave. Anyone have any idea why he seems to have bailed on that update?

Because his hypothesis failed?
Jarred is a brilliant thinker, and IMO we're very fortunate to have him working on ME/CFS.
But his communications are frustratingly hit-or-miss.
Remember the research he was working on years ago to find a botanical that would reduce brain inflammation?
Try finding the results of that anywhere.
If he had found something important I'm sure he would have announced it.
But we deserve to know either way.
 

SNT Gatchaman

Senior Member
Messages
302
Location
New Zealand
Yes I also had another brain MRI done, which came out clear. So then we did the MRS, which supposedly looks at the chemical make up of the brain, but it was also clear.

Do you happen to know if they specifically assessed eg ventricles for lactate, rather than central grey nuclei or white matter?