Chronic Fatigue Syndrome and Psychoneuroimmunology

Klimas, Nancy G.; Riel, F. Van; Millon, Carrie; Fletcher, Mary A; Morgan, Rachel; Salvato, F.

doi:10.4324/9781315827490-7

Cited by 1 publication

(13 citation statements)

References 1 publication

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“…Four of the records that were excluded during title and abstract screening were potentially relevant literature reviews (33,(74)(75)(76) and one of the excluded records was a potentially relevant comment article (77). From these papers, 13 potentially relevant records (24,38,39,41,42,44,67,(78)(79)(80)(81)(82)(83) were identified. Seven of these records (24,38,39,41,42,44,67) were excluded during title and abstract screening as they had already been identified in the initial database search.…”

Section: Study Selectionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Seven of these records (24,38,39,41,42,44,67) were excluded during title and abstract screening as they had already been identified in the initial database search. The remaining six reports (78)(79)(80)(81)(82)(83) were assessed for eligibility of which three (81)(82)(83) fulfilled the inclusion criteria (as for two of these reports, only abstracts were available). Reports were excluded based on the following reasons: not investigating associations between relevant psychological and immunological variables (n = 1) (78); letter article, not providing enough details on the study (n = 1) (79); not reporting the relevant associations as described in the review (n = 1) (80).…”

Section: Study Selectionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Evidence further indicates that various symptom dimensions (mental health, psychiatric symptoms, and fatigue) might be associated with T cells (CD4 + and/or CD8 + counts/percentages) (33,46,47,83), while emotion regulation, interpersonal function, and sleep are not (43,45,46). Among the psychological constructs examined in this review, only executive function has been found to be associated with T cells (CD4 + and CD8 + counts/percentages) (33,(81)(82)(83). Interestingly, poorer subjective executive function, more anti-social, sadistic, and passive-aggressive personality styles as well as higher levels of alcohol and drug dependence have all been found to be associated with higher CD4 + counts (81,83).…”

Section: The Current Evidence Base On Cross-sectional Associationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Among the psychological constructs examined in this review, only executive function has been found to be associated with T cells (CD4 + and CD8 + counts/percentages) (33,(81)(82)(83). Interestingly, poorer subjective executive function, more anti-social, sadistic, and passive-aggressive personality styles as well as higher levels of alcohol and drug dependence have all been found to be associated with higher CD4 + counts (81,83). Further, poorer objective executive function and poorer mental health have both been found to be associated with lower CD4 + percentages (46,83).…”

Section: The Current Evidence Base On Cross-sectional Associationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…More specifically, it can be hypothesized that (i) improvements in some aspects of executive and interpersonal functioning as well as sleep will contribute to reduce the levels of IL-1, IL-6, and TNF, and (ii) improvements in some aspects of emotion regulation and sleep will contribute to reduce the levels of IL-2. As executive function also has been found to be associated with T cells (CD4 + and CD8 + counts/percentages) (33,(81)(82)(83), it can further be hypothesized that improvements in some aspects of executive function would result in favorable changes in T cell counts/percentages. A normalization of immune system function in CFS/ME could, in turn, have reciprocal effects on the brain processes underlying executive function, emotion regulation, interpersonal function, and sleep, such creating a positive self-reinforcing mechanism facilitating recovery.…”

Section: Hypotheses and Recommendations For Future Researchmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Associations Between Psychological and Immunological Variables in Chronic Fatigue Syndrome/Myalgic Encephalomyelitis: A Systematic Review

Raanes

Stiles

2021

Front. Psychiatry

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Background: Little emphasis has been given to the fact that various psychological processes and behaviors in chronic fatigue syndrome/myalgic encephalomyelitis (CFS/ME) have neural correlates that affect—and are affected by—the immune system. The aim of this paper is to provide a systematic review of the literature on cross-sectional and longitudinal associations between psychological and immunological variables/changes in CFS/ME.Methods: The systematic literature search was conducted on Dec 10, 2020 using PubMed. Original research studies investigating associations between a predefined set of psychological and immunological variables in CFS/ME were included. Specifically, the review was focused on studies examining the following psychological variables: executive function, emotion regulation, interpersonal function, sleep, mental health, anxiety, depression, and/or other psychiatric symptoms. In terms of immunological variables, studies investigating interleukin (IL)-1, IL-2, IL-4, IL-6, tumor necrosis factor (TNF), CD4+, and/or CD8+ were included. Besides original research papers, other potentially relevant papers (e.g., literature reviews) were carefully read and reference lists were checked in order to identify any additional relevant studies. Available data was summarized in text and tables.Results: The literature search identified 897 potentially relevant papers. Ultimately, 14 studies (807 participants in total) were included in the review of which only two were longitudinal in nature. The review indicated that executive function is associated with IL-1 and IL-6, and interpersonal function is associated with IL-6 and TNF-α. Further, the available data suggested that emotion regulation is associated with IL-2 and sleep is associated with IL-1, IL-6, TNF-α, and IL-2. Interestingly, poorer emotion regulation, interpersonal function, and sleep have all been found to be associated with higher cytokine levels. Executive function has shown both positive and negative relationships with cytokines and among these psychological constructs, it is also the only one that has been found to be associated with CD4+ and CD8+ counts/percentages.Conclusions: Correlations exist between psychological and immunological variables in CFS/ME. However, there are few consistent findings and there is almost a complete lack of longitudinal studies. This review points to a gap in existing CFS/ME research and hopefully, it will inspire to the generation of innovative, psychoneuroimmunological hypotheses within the CFS/ME research field.

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