Todhunter-Brown, Alex, Campbell, Pauline, Broderick, Cathryn et al. · Health technology assessment (Winchester, England) · 2025 · DOI
This study looked at all ME/CFS research published between 2018 and 2023 to see what scientists have been studying and how much research exists on different topics. Researchers found 639 studies involving over 600,000 people with ME/CFS. More than half of the research focused on trying to understand what causes ME/CFS, while fewer studies looked at treatments or how to diagnose the condition. The researchers created an interactive map so patients and doctors can explore what research has been done.
This comprehensive research map reveals critical gaps in ME/CFS evidence and guides future research priorities. For patients, it highlights that treatment research remains severely underfunded relative to cause research, and demonstrates the inconsistency in how ME/CFS is defined across studies, which may obscure findings. For researchers and funders, it provides strategic evidence that interventional studies and high-quality diagnostic research are significantly underrepresented and require urgent investment.
This evidence map does not evaluate the quality or validity of individual primary studies—it only assessed systematic review methodology. It does not determine what the existing evidence actually shows regarding causes, treatments, or diagnostic accuracy. It also does not explain why certain research gaps exist or provide recommendations for specific future studies; it only identifies where research is most scarce.
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
Todhunter-Brown, Alex, Campbell, Pauline, Broderick, Cathryn, Cowie, Julie, Davis, Bridget, Fenton, Candida, et al. (2025). Recent research in myalgic encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue syndrome: an evidence map.. Health technology assessment (Winchester, England). https://doi.org/10.3310/BTBD8846
BibTeX
@article{mecfsatlas-todhunter-brown-2025-recent-research,
author = {Todhunter-Brown, Alex and Campbell, Pauline and Broderick, Cathryn and Cowie, Julie and Davis, Bridget and Fenton, Candida and Markham, Sarah and Sellers, Ceri and Thomson, Katie and NIHR Evidence Synthesis Scotland Initiative (NESSIE)},
title = {Recent research in myalgic encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue syndrome: an evidence map.},
journal = {Health technology assessment (Winchester, England)},
year = {2025},
doi = {10.3310/BTBD8846},
note = {PubMed: 40162526},
url = {https://www.mecfsatlas.com/evidence/todhunter-brown-2025-recent-research},
}Atlas snapshot reference
ME/CFS Atlas. Generator v1 / Scanner v1.4 / policy v0.1. Accessed 2026-05-25. https://www.mecfsatlas.com/evidence/todhunter-brown-2025-recent-research
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