[Chronic Fatigue Syndrome and neurotransmitters] [Article in Japanese]

Authors and affiliation: Miwa S, Takikawa O. Department of Cellular Pharmacology, Hokkaido University Graduate School of Medicine, Japan.

PMID: 17561689

Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (CFS) is an idiopathic illness characterized by persistent fatigue, which could be caused by a variety of etiologic factors including viral infection, abnormal production of cytokines and abnormal acylcarnitine metabolism.

Recent studies suggest that CFS is closely associated with attenuation of central synaptic transmission mediated by neurotransmitters such as serotonin and glutamate. Attenuation of serotonin neurotransmission can be caused by increased expression of serotonin transporter, which results either from viral infection and subsequent production of interferon-alpha or from abnormal promoter for serotonin transporter gene.

Other neurotransmitter systems may be also involved in CFS mediated by abnormal acylcarnitine metabolism and autoantibodies for neurotransmitter receptors.

In this review, we focus recent data on CFS in terms of neurotransmitters.