Good news that the CFS Research Foundation is funding an experimental study into the neurophysiology of pain . Based at Barts and The London School, it will explore central sensitisation and the spinal and central components involved. Pain is a very common symptom in ME/CFS; it tends to be experienced in the muscles and/or joints – as seen in a study jointly funded by ME Research UK and Glasgow Caledonian University in 2010 – and 84–94% of patients in formal research studies report some degree of muscle or joint pain, so new experimental studies are urgently needed and are to be welcomed.
Central sensitization – an abnormal increase in the firing of nerve cells lying deep within the central nervous system – has become an increasingly important concept in pain research in recent years, and the evidence for its possible role in ME/CFS was reviewed recently as part of an ME Research UK-funded program in Belgium.
