Hyland, Michael E, Antonacci, Yuri, Bacon, Alison M · Scandinavian journal of psychology · 2024 · DOI
This study compared how symptoms are connected to each other in long-COVID and ME/CFS patients, along with people who have other conditions like fibromyalgia and IBS. Researchers found that while long-COVID and ME/CFS are related conditions, their symptoms connect differently—ME/CFS symptoms form more separate clusters, whereas long-COVID symptoms are more tightly linked together. The study suggests that these conditions may work through a network-like system in the body rather than a single broken mechanism.
This research challenges the assumption that ME/CFS has a simple, single-cause mechanism and instead suggests symptoms arise from interconnected biological networks. Understanding this network structure could explain why ME/CFS patients often experience overlapping symptoms with other conditions and why different treatment approaches may help different patients.
This study does not establish causal mechanisms or identify the biological pathways underlying symptom networks. The cross-sectional design cannot determine whether observed network patterns emerge before, during, or after disease onset, and network analysis alone cannot prove connectionist versus other biological models are correct.
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
Hyland, Michael E, Antonacci, Yuri, & Bacon, Alison M (2024). Comparison of the symptom networks of long-COVID and chronic fatigue syndrome: From modularity to connectionism.. Scandinavian journal of psychology. https://doi.org/10.1111/sjop.13060
BibTeX
@article{mecfsatlas-hyland-2024-comparison-symptom,
author = {Hyland, Michael E and Antonacci, Yuri and Bacon, Alison M},
title = {Comparison of the symptom networks of long-COVID and chronic fatigue syndrome: From modularity to connectionism.},
journal = {Scandinavian journal of psychology},
year = {2024},
doi = {10.1111/sjop.13060},
note = {PubMed: 39034480},
url = {https://www.mecfsatlas.com/evidence/hyland-2024-comparison-symptom},
}Atlas snapshot reference
ME/CFS Atlas. Generator v1 / Scanner v1.4 / policy v0.1. Accessed 2026-05-29. https://www.mecfsatlas.com/evidence/hyland-2024-comparison-symptom
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