Chronic fatigue syndrome is common in people in their 20s and 50s, and it is a disease that makes it impossible to lead a normal social life for more than half a year due to unexplained inferiority and fatigue.It is often seen in children who do not attend school, and it has been pointed out that fatigue and deterioration of memory and attention that continue for 3 months or more may hinder adaptation to school life.Currently, the challenge is to elucidate the relationship between fatigue and brain function and develop treatments.

　The group attempted to observe active areas by measuring blood flow in the brain while conducting tests on children that performed multiple tasks at the same time.It is a test to read a story written in hiragana and grasp the contents while picking up vowels.As a result, it was found that CCFS children were overactive in two places such as the frontal lobe compared to healthy children.Further examination of this area revealed that the higher the degree of fatigue, the more active the activity.In other words, it is thought that CCFS children activate neural activity to improve comprehension, resulting in inefficient brain activity and mental burden.

This is the world's first study to examine brain activity from blood flow measurements in CCFS children, and it is significant to be able to clarify that brain function is overworked rather than diminished.This raises the possibility that suppressing the activity of the frontal lobe can improve the symptoms of CCFS.In the future, we plan to continue research toward the establishment of treatment methods.

Source:[RIKEN] Clarifying the brain activity status of children with chronic fatigue syndrome