Rimes, Katharine A, Giampietro, Vincent, Chalder, Trudie et al. · Brain communications · 2026 · DOI
This brain imaging study compared how people with ME/CFS and healthy people process memories related to fatigue and anger. Researchers found that people with ME/CFS use different brain regions—particularly areas called the striatum and insula—when recalling or trying to suppress these emotional memories. These findings suggest that ME/CFS may involve changes in how the brain handles emotions and memories, which could help explain some experiences people with ME/CFS report.
Understanding how ME/CFS affects emotional processing and memory regulation could provide objective neural markers for the condition and inform why emotional memories feel particularly difficult to manage. These insights may eventually guide development of targeted interventions that work with the brain's emotional regulatory systems. The identification of specific brain regions involved opens new research directions for investigating the neurobiological basis of ME/CFS.
This study does not prove that altered brain activation causes ME/CFS symptoms or that emotional regulation problems are the primary driver of fatigue. The small sample size (20 per group) and observational design mean findings cannot establish causation or be confidently generalized to all ME/CFS populations. It remains unclear whether these brain differences are unique to ME/CFS or reflect general effects of chronic illness.
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 →
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Primary citation
Rimes, Katharine A, Giampietro, Vincent, Chalder, Trudie, Zahn, Roland, Simmons, Andrew, & Fallon, Sean James (2026). Aberrant recruitment of the striatum and insula is associated with recalling and suppressing fatigue- and anger-related memories in people with chronic fatigue syndrome/myalgic encephalomyelitis.. Brain communications. https://doi.org/10.1093/braincomms/fcag101
BibTeX
@article{mecfsatlas-rimes-2026-aberrant-recruitment,
author = {Rimes, Katharine A and Giampietro, Vincent and Chalder, Trudie and Zahn, Roland and Simmons, Andrew and Fallon, Sean James},
title = {Aberrant recruitment of the striatum and insula is associated with recalling and suppressing fatigue- and anger-related memories in people with chronic fatigue syndrome/myalgic encephalomyelitis.},
journal = {Brain communications},
year = {2026},
doi = {10.1093/braincomms/fcag101},
note = {PubMed: 41940184},
url = {https://www.mecfsatlas.com/evidence/rimes-2026-aberrant-recruitment},
}Atlas snapshot reference
ME/CFS Atlas. Generator v1 / Scanner v1.4 / policy v0.1. Accessed 2026-05-29. https://www.mecfsatlas.com/evidence/rimes-2026-aberrant-recruitment
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