Van Den Houte, Maaike, Ramakers, Indra, Van Oudenhove, Lukas et al. · Journal of psychosomatic research · 2025 · DOI
This study measured how the nervous system responds to stress in people with ME/CFS and similar conditions, compared to healthy people. Researchers found that patients with ME/CFS and stress-related conditions had their 'stress response system' stuck in overdrive even at rest, and this system didn't properly calm down after stress passed. These findings suggest that autonomic nervous system dysfunction—an imbalance in the automatic systems that control heart rate and other vital functions—may be a common feature across these conditions.
This study provides objective physiological evidence that ME/CFS involves measurable autonomic nervous system dysfunction, validating patient experiences of abnormal stress responses and poor recovery. Understanding that ANS dysregulation is transdiagnostic—shared across ME/CFS and stress-related syndromes—may guide development of targeted treatments addressing the underlying nervous system imbalance.
This cross-sectional study cannot establish whether ANS dysfunction causes ME/CFS symptoms, results from them, or reflects a shared underlying mechanism. It does not prove that ANS dysfunction is the primary pathology in ME/CFS, nor does it demonstrate that normalizing ANS function would resolve disease symptoms. The study also cannot determine if these ANS patterns are stable over time or change with disease progression.
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
Van Den Houte, Maaike, Ramakers, Indra, Van Oudenhove, Lukas, Van den Bergh, Omer, & Bogaerts, Katleen (2025). Comparing autonomic nervous system function in patients with functional somatic syndromes, stress-related syndromes and healthy controls.. Journal of psychosomatic research. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jpsychores.2024.112025
BibTeX
@article{mecfsatlas-van-den-houte-2025-comparing-autonomic,
author = {Van Den Houte, Maaike and Ramakers, Indra and Van Oudenhove, Lukas and Van den Bergh, Omer and Bogaerts, Katleen},
title = {Comparing autonomic nervous system function in patients with functional somatic syndromes, stress-related syndromes and healthy controls.},
journal = {Journal of psychosomatic research},
year = {2025},
doi = {10.1016/j.jpsychores.2024.112025},
note = {PubMed: 39755009},
url = {https://www.mecfsatlas.com/evidence/van-den-houte-2025-comparing-autonomic},
}Atlas snapshot reference
ME/CFS Atlas. Generator v1 / Scanner v1.4 / policy v0.1. Accessed 2026-05-30. https://www.mecfsatlas.com/evidence/van-den-houte-2025-comparing-autonomic
Contribute
Private, reviewed by a human. Not a public comment thread.