Tag: alpha waves

A systematic review of quantitative EEG findings in Long COVID, Fibromyalgia and Chronic Fatigue Syndrome

Abstract:

Long COVID (LC) is a multisymptom clinical syndrome with similarities to Fibromyalgia Syndrome (FMS) and Chronic Fatigue Syndrome/Myalgic Encephalomyelitis (CFS/ME). All these conditions are believed to be associated with centrally driven mechanisms such as central sensitisation.

There is a lack of consensus on quantitative EEG (qEEG) changes observed in these conditions. This review aims to synthesise and appraise the literature on resting-state qEEG in LC, FMS and CFS/ME, to help uncover possible mechanisms of central sensitisation in these similar clinical syndromes.

A systematic search of MEDLINE, Embase, CINHAL, PsycINFO and Web of Science databases for articles published between December 1994 and September 2023 was performed. Following screening for predetermined selection criteria and out of the initial 2510 studies identified, 17 articles were retrieved that met all the inclusion criteria, particularly of assessing qEEG changes in one of the three conditions compared to healthy controls. All studies scored moderate to high quality on the Newcastle-Ottawa scale.

There was a general trend for decreased low frequency EEG band activity (delta, theta, and alpha) and increased high-frequency EEG beta activity in FMS, whereas an opposite trend was found in CFS/ME. The limited LC studies included in this review focused mainly on cognitive impairments and showed mixed findings not consistent with patterns seen in FMS and CFS/ME.

Further research is required to explore whether there are phenotypes within LC that have EEG signatures similar to FMS or CFS/ME. This could inform identification of reliable diagnostic markers and possible targets for neuromodulation therapies.

Source: Bárbara Silva-Passadouro, Arnas Tamasauskas, Omar Khoja, Alexander J. Casson, Ioannis Delis, Christopher Brown, Manoj Sivan. A systematic review of quantitative EEG findings in Long COVID, Fibromyalgia and Chronic Fatigue Syndrome. medRxiv [Preprint] https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2023.11.06.23298171v1.full-text (Full text)

Electroencephalogram characteristics in patients with chronic fatigue syndrome

Abstract:

OBJECTIVE: To explore the electroencephalogram (EEG) characteristics in patients with chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS) using brain electrical activity mapping (BEAM) and EEG nonlinear dynamical analysis.

METHODS: Forty-seven outpatients were selected over a 3-month period and divided into an observation group (24 outpatients) and a control group (23 outpatients) by using the non-probability sampling method. All the patients were given a routine EEG. The BEAM and the correlation dimension changes were analyzed to characterize the EEG features.

RESULTS: 1) BEAM results indicated that the energy values of δ, θ, and α1 waves significantly increased in the observation group, compared with the control group (P<0.05, P<0.01, respectively), which suggests that the brain electrical activities in CFS patients were significantly reduced and stayed in an inhibitory state; 2) the increase of δ, θ, and α1 energy values in the right frontal and left occipital regions was more significant than other encephalic regions in CFS patients, indicating the region-specific encephalic distribution; 3) the correlation dimension in the observation group was significantly lower than the control group, suggesting decreased EEG complexity in CFS patients.

CONCLUSION: The spontaneous brain electrical activities in CFS patients were significantly reduced. The abnormal changes in the cerebral functions were localized at the right frontal and left occipital regions in CFS patients.

 

Source: Wu T, Qi X, Su Y, Teng J, Xu X. Electroencephalogram characteristics in patients with chronic fatigue syndrome. Neuropsychiatr Dis Treat. 2016 Jan 28;12:241-9. doi: 10.2147/NDT.S92911. ECollection 2016. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4734796/ (Full article)