Barnden, Leighton R, Kwiatek, Richard, Crouch, Benjamin et al. · NeuroImage. Clinical · 2016 · DOI
This study examined whether blood pressure and heart rate patterns in ME/CFS patients are connected to differences in how their brains are structured or functioning. Researchers used 24-hour blood pressure monitoring and brain MRI scans in 25 ME/CFS patients and 25 healthy people, looking for correlations between the two. They found that ME/CFS patients showed unusual patterns in how their brainstem—the part of the brain that controls automatic functions like heart rate and blood pressure—communicated with other brain regions, suggesting a communication problem rather than structural damage.
This study provides brain imaging evidence for a specific neurobiological mechanism underlying autonomic dysfunction in ME/CFS, moving beyond anecdotal autonomic symptoms to demonstrate measurable brainstem-level communication abnormalities. Understanding these brain-autonomic correlations could eventually inform targeted diagnostic biomarkers and guide development of treatments addressing root causes rather than symptoms alone.
This study does not establish that the brainstem communication deficits cause autonomic symptoms—only that abnormal correlations exist. The cross-sectional design cannot determine whether these brain-autonomic relationships are primary pathology, secondary consequences, or both. The findings are correlational and exploratory; they require replication in larger, prospective studies before firm causal conclusions can be drawn.
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
Barnden, Leighton R, Kwiatek, Richard, Crouch, Benjamin, Burnet, Richard, & Del Fante, Peter (2016). Autonomic correlations with MRI are abnormal in the brainstem vasomotor centre in Chronic Fatigue Syndrome.. NeuroImage. Clinical. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.nicl.2016.03.017
BibTeX
@article{mecfsatlas-barnden-2016-autonomic-correlations,
author = {Barnden, Leighton R and Kwiatek, Richard and Crouch, Benjamin and Burnet, Richard and Del Fante, Peter},
title = {Autonomic correlations with MRI are abnormal in the brainstem vasomotor centre in Chronic Fatigue Syndrome.},
journal = {NeuroImage. Clinical},
year = {2016},
doi = {10.1016/j.nicl.2016.03.017},
note = {PubMed: 27114901},
url = {https://www.mecfsatlas.com/evidence/barnden-2016-autonomic-correlations},
}Atlas snapshot reference
ME/CFS Atlas. Generator v1 / Scanner v1.4 / policy v0.1. Accessed 2026-05-30. https://www.mecfsatlas.com/evidence/barnden-2016-autonomic-correlations
Contribute
Private, reviewed by a human. Not a public comment thread.