Van Den Eede, Filip, Moorkens, Greta, Hulstijn, Wouter et al. · Psychiatry research · 2011 · DOI
This study tested whether people with ME/CFS have slower hand movements and difficulty controlling automatic responses compared to healthy people. Patients and controls completed computer tasks that involved copying patterns while the researchers measured how fast they reacted and moved. The results showed that ME/CFS patients were noticeably slower at both reacting and moving, but they were equally able to control their automatic responses when the patterns were harder to draw.
Psychomotor slowing is a common and disabling symptom in ME/CFS, yet few objective tests exist to measure it. This study demonstrates that computerised figure-copying tasks can reliably detect slowing in CFS and may offer a sensitive tool for clinical assessment and tracking treatment effects in future trials.
This cross-sectional study cannot establish causation or the underlying neurobiological mechanisms responsible for psychomotor slowing in CFS. The study was conducted exclusively in women without current major depression, so findings may not generalise to men with CFS or those with comorbid depression. It also does not clarify whether slowing worsens with post-exertional malaise or other ME/CFS symptom triggers.
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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