Article abstract:
Myalgic Encephalomyelitis/Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (ME/CFS) is a debilitating multi-systemic chronic illness of unknown etiology, classified as a neurological disorder by the World Health Organization (WHO).
The symptomatology of the condition appears to emanate from a variety of sources of chronic neurological disturbance and associated distortions, and chronicity, in noxious sensory signaling and neuroimmune activation.
This article incorporates a summary review and discussion of biomedical research considered relevant to this essential conception perspective. It is intended to provide stakeholders with a concise, integrated outline disease model in order to help demystify this major public health problem.
The primary etiopathological factors presented are:
- (A) Postural/biomechanical pain signaling, affecting adverse neuroexcitation, in the context of compression, constriction, strain, or damage of vertebral-regional bone and neuromuscular tissues;
- (B) Immune mediated inflammatory sequelae, in the context of prolonged immunotropic neurotrophic infection—with lymphotropic/gliotropic/glio-toxic varieties implicated in particular;
- (C) A combination of factors A and B. Sustained glial activation under such conditions is associated with oxidative and nitrosative stress, neuroinflammation, and neural sensitivity.
These processes collectively enhance the potential for multi-systemic disarray involving endocrine pathway aberration, immune and mitochondrial dysfunction, and neurodegeneration, and tend toward still more intractable synergistic neuro-glial dysfunction (gliopathy), autoimmunity, and central neuronal sensitization.
The Neuroinflammatory Etiopathology of Myalgic Encephalomyelitis/Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (ME/CFS), by Independent Health Researcher and Consultant, Julian AG Glassford, from Shrewsbury in Front. Physiol., 17 February 2017
