Spinal cord inflammation in ME/CFS

Margaret Williams, 30th November 2010

1955:

In this outbreak of ME in Adelaide, Australia, an agent was repeatedly transmitted to monkeys;

when the monkeys were killed, microscopically, infiltration of nerve roots with lymphocytes and mononuclear cells was seen

and some of the nerve fibres showed patchy damage in the myelin sheaths and axon swellings consistent with neurological involvement.

In these monkeys, there were widespread changes involving the dorsal root ganglia, cervical and lumbar nerve roots and peripheral nerves.

Perivascular collars of lymphocytes and plasma cells were in the cerebral cortex, brainstem and cerebellum, spinal cord and around blood vessels to nerve roots (Pellew RAA, Miles JAR; Med J Aust:1955:2:13:480-482, cited by J Gordon Parish; Postgraduate Medical Journal 1978:54:711-717).

This is particularly significant, given the autopsy evidence presented at the Royal Society of Medicine meeting in the series “Medicine and me” on 11th July 2009 by Dr Abhijit Chaudhuri,

where he showed slides of inflammation of the dorsal root ganglia in three ME/CFS patients.

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