{"id":11165,"date":"2016-12-20T09:43:48","date_gmt":"2016-12-20T09:43:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/wames.org.uk\/cms-english\/?p=11165"},"modified":"2017-01-09T11:09:46","modified_gmt":"2017-01-09T11:09:46","slug":"dr-vanelzakkers-me-research-using-pet-mri-and-tesla-7-scans","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wames.org.uk\/cms-english\/dr-vanelzakkers-me-research-using-pet-mri-and-tesla-7-scans\/","title":{"rendered":"Dr VanElzakker’s ME research using PET, MRI and Tesla-7 scans"},"content":{"rendered":"

MEAction<\/strong> blog post, by Jaime S, 12Dec 2016: Dr VanElzakker: two new ME\/CFS studies at Harvard<\/a><\/h3>\n

#MEAction recently interviewed Dr. Michael VanElzakker<\/a> regarding two, new studies on ME\/CFS.<\/p>\n

\"michael-vanelzakker\"The first aims to discover evidence of increased activity where the sensory vagus nerve <\/a>enters the brainstem \u2013 a subtle effect that requires some intricate scans.<\/p>\n

In order to measure the activity in the vagus nerve, Dr. VanElzakker will use a scanner that is capable of concurrently performing two different types of scans: PET <\/a>and MRI<\/a>.\u00a0 A PET scan allows researchers to pick up very subtle differences in biological function, while an MRI captures more detailed anatomy.<\/p>\n

The study is well underway: Dr. VanElzakker has scanned six patients and two controls so far.\u00a0 It\u2019s a small study, VanElzakker revealed, with the hope of using the results to apply for a grant down the line.\u00a0 Right now, the pilot study is funded solely through Massachusetts General Hospital \/ Harvard Medical School\u2019s Martinos Center for Biomedical Imaging.<\/p>\n

The second study, still in the grant-application stage, will be a post-exercise test, using MRI to pick up the activity of different metabolites in patients\u2019 brains.\u00a0 VanElzakker plans to use a 7-Tesla scanner \u2013 a very high strength scanner \u2013 in order to produce especially high-quality images; he also hopes to perform autonomic testing.<\/p>\n

Dr. VanElzakker is basing his study design off of previous exercise challenge studies.\u00a0 He hopes to replicate their findings, as well as uncover new evidence about autonomic dysfunction and post-exertional metabolic changes in the brains of ME patients.<\/p>\n

Dr. VanElzakker\u2019s position about ME\u2019s biomedical nature is unequivocal.<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople at teaching hospitals are following the research,\u201d he said.\u00a0 \u201cEveryone here recognizes that it\u2019s a neuroimmune condition and approaches it that way.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen a condition is \u2018medically unexplained,\u2019 some seem to assume that means that it must be psychogenic. We would say that if medicine cannot yet explain something, perhaps the fault lies with medicine,\u201d he added.\u00a0 \u201cThere are plenty of things [in biology] we aren\u2019t able to image, yet.\u00a0 We aren\u2019t able to measure this thing with rudimentary scans and blood tests.\u201d\u00a0 VanElzakker laughs.\u00a0 \u201cWe don\u2019t have a test yet, therefore it\u2019s psychogenic?\u00a0 That reveals a tragic lack of humility about what we know and what we don\u2019t know.\u201d<\/p>\n

An Interview with Michael VanElzakker Ph.d<\/a>, 14 Feb 2014<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

MEAction blog post, by Jaime S, 12Dec 2016: Dr VanElzakker: two new ME\/CFS studies at Harvard #MEAction recently interviewed Dr. Michael VanElzakker regarding two, new studies on ME\/CFS. The first aims to discover evidence of increased activity where the sensory … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":true,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[3365,3366,3367,2156,1037,706,3369,3368],"class_list":["post-11165","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-dr-michael-vanelzakker","tag-harvard-medical-school","tag-jaime-s","tag-meaction","tag-mri","tag-pet-scan","tag-sensory-vagus-nerve","tag-tesla-7-scan"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5qkYK-2U5","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wames.org.uk\/cms-english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11165","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wames.org.uk\/cms-english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wames.org.uk\/cms-english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wames.org.uk\/cms-english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wames.org.uk\/cms-english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11165"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/wames.org.uk\/cms-english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11165\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11350,"href":"https:\/\/wames.org.uk\/cms-english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11165\/revisions\/11350"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wames.org.uk\/cms-english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11165"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wames.org.uk\/cms-english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11165"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wames.org.uk\/cms-english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11165"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}