Hutchinson, Claire V, Badham, Stephen P · Optometry and vision science : official publication of the American Academy of Optometry · 2013 · DOI
This study tested whether people with ME/CFS have difficulty with visual attention—the ability to focus on and track things they see. Researchers compared 29 patients with ME/CFS to 29 healthy people using eye-tracking tests. The results showed that ME/CFS patients did struggle more with certain types of visual attention tasks, particularly when they had to focus on specific things or search for objects, supporting what many patients report experiencing.
Many ME/CFS patients report cognitive and visual difficulties that are often dismissed or attributed to other causes. This study provides objective experimental evidence of visual attention impairment, validating patient experiences and suggesting a measurable biomarker that could eventually improve diagnosis and clinical recognition of ME/CFS.
This study does not prove that visual attention problems are unique to ME/CFS or that they are caused by a specific biological mechanism. It only demonstrates that impairment exists in this patient group at a single point in time; it cannot establish whether these difficulties worsen with disease progression, improve with treatment, or correlate with symptom severity. The cross-sectional design means causation cannot be determined.
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
Hutchinson, Claire V & Badham, Stephen P (2013). Patterns of abnormal visual attention in myalgic encephalomyelitis.. Optometry and vision science : official publication of the American Academy of Optometry. https://doi.org/10.1097/OPX.0b013e318294c232
BibTeX
@article{mecfsatlas-hutchinson-2013-patterns-abnormal,
author = {Hutchinson, Claire V and Badham, Stephen P},
title = {Patterns of abnormal visual attention in myalgic encephalomyelitis.},
journal = {Optometry and vision science : official publication of the American Academy of Optometry},
year = {2013},
doi = {10.1097/OPX.0b013e318294c232},
note = {PubMed: 23689679},
url = {https://www.mecfsatlas.com/evidence/hutchinson-2013-patterns-abnormal},
}Atlas snapshot reference
ME/CFS Atlas. Generator v1 / Scanner v1.4 / policy v0.1. Accessed 2026-05-30. https://www.mecfsatlas.com/evidence/hutchinson-2013-patterns-abnormal
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