Schauenburg, Henning · Zeitschrift fur Psychosomatische Medizin und Psychotherapie · 2023 · DOI
This review examines how post-COVID illness and ME/CFS develop and persist, looking beyond just physical symptoms to understand how the brain perceives and responds to the body. The authors suggest that standard medical tests only partially explain chronic fatigue, and that a newer theory called 'Predictive Coding' may help us understand how the mind and body interact in these complex conditions. The goal is to develop better treatments while avoiding the harmful stigma of labeling these as 'just psychological' problems.
This study challenges oversimplified views of ME/CFS and post-COVID fatigue by proposing that understanding how the brain perceives bodily signals is crucial to understanding the disease. For patients, this perspective validates that the illness is real and biological while recognizing the complexity of mind-body interactions—potentially leading to better, less stigmatizing treatments.
This is a literature review, not an empirical study generating new experimental data, so it does not directly test Predictive Coding theory in ME/CFS or post-COVID patients. The paper does not establish causation or prove that psychological factors are primary drivers of fatigue—rather, it argues for integrated models that move beyond traditional categorical distinctions between 'physical' and 'psychological' causes.
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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