Baraniuk, James N · Scientific reports · 2025 · DOI
Researchers studied brain fluid from ME/CFS patients to understand what goes wrong with how their brains use energy. They found that ME/CFS patients have abnormal levels of certain molecules involved in energy production and brain cell function, and these problems got worse after exercise. The study suggests that ME/CFS may involve problems with how the brain processes nutrients and maintains its protective coating around nerve fibers.
This is the first study to examine CSF metabolomics in ME/CFS post-exercise, providing direct evidence that brain metabolism is fundamentally disrupted in this condition. These findings could lead to objective biomarkers for diagnosis and identify specific metabolic pathways that could become therapeutic targets, offering hope for disease-modifying treatments.
This study does not prove these metabolic changes cause ME/CFS symptoms or establish which changes are primary versus secondary consequences of the disease. The findings are correlative and do not demonstrate causation, and results from CSF may not fully represent whole-body metabolism or symptom mechanisms.
About the PEM badge: “PEM required” means post-exertional malaise was an explicit required diagnostic criterion for participant inclusion in this study — not that PEM was studied, observed, or discussed. Studies using criteria that do not require PEM (e.g. Fukuda, Oxford) are tagged “PEM not required”. How the atlas works →
The first block is for the primary paper and is the citation you should use in research work. The atlas-snapshot line only applies if you are specifically referring to this atlas’s reading of the paper on the date shown.
Primary citation
Baraniuk, James N (2025). Cerebrospinal fluid metabolomics, lipidomics and serine pathway dysfunction in myalgic encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue syndroome (ME/CFS).. Scientific reports. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-025-91324-1
BibTeX
@article{mecfsatlas-baraniuk-2025-cerebrospinal-fluid,
author = {Baraniuk, James N},
title = {Cerebrospinal fluid metabolomics, lipidomics and serine pathway dysfunction in myalgic encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue syndroome (ME/CFS).},
journal = {Scientific reports},
year = {2025},
doi = {10.1038/s41598-025-91324-1},
note = {PubMed: 40025157},
url = {https://www.mecfsatlas.com/evidence/baraniuk-2025-cerebrospinal-fluid},
}Atlas snapshot reference
ME/CFS Atlas. Generator v1 / Scanner v1.4 / policy v0.1. Accessed 2026-05-26. https://www.mecfsatlas.com/evidence/baraniuk-2025-cerebrospinal-fluid
Contribute
Private, reviewed by a human. Not a public comment thread.