Multisensory mental imagery of fatigue in patients with multiple Sclerosis. Preliminary evidence from a fMRI study.

Fatigue, defined as a subjective lack of physical and/or mental energy, is a clinical symptom highly characterizing multiple sclerosis (MS). The present study utilized a novel approach to the study of fatigue, examining first person-mental imagery of the symptom. Eighteen right-handed patients with MS (14F, 4 M, mean age 45.8 ± 8.15 years) were evaluated and were compared to nineteen healthy controls (10F, 9 M, mean age 43.15 ± 8.34 years) Patients were all in relapsing remitting form and no patient had presented relapses in the 6 months prior to inclusion in the study. We evaluated their behavioral performance and fMRI activations. We used an fMRI paradigm used to trigger first person-mental imagery of fatigue, through short sentences describing the principal manifestations of fatigue. Participants were asked to imagine the corresponding sensations (Sensory Imagery, SI). As a control, they had to imagine the visual scenes (Visual Imagery, VI) described in short phrases. They made a vividness rating by pressing the corresponding button. Behaviorally, we found that patients' mean scores at the Multidimensional Fatigue Symptom Inventory for the general scale, physical scale, and mental scale were significantly higher than healthy controls (p = 0.05, p = 0.002, p = 0.006 respectively), but not for the emotional scale and for vigor scale (p = 0.207, n.s., p = 0.06, n.s.). In the imagery fMRI task, patients were significantly slower (mean reaction times and standard deviation: 2.24 s ± 0.33) than controls (mean reaction times and standard deviation: 1.918 s ± 0.455) for the SI task (Z=-2.058, p = 0.040), while no significant difference was found for the VI task. Regarding brain mapping, our main result is a group by task interaction. The SI task (vs. VI task) in healthy controls (relative to patients) increased activation in the left inferior parietal lobule. These preliminary results indicate that fatigue is related to dysfunctions in higher-order aspects of motor control, given the role of the posterior parietal lobe in motor planning and multisensory integration.

Ketogenic diet may improve sleep quality and daytime somnolence in patients affected by multiple sclerosis. Results of an exploratory study.

OBJECTIVE/BACKGROUND: Patients with multiple sclerosis (MS) frequently report sleep complaints. The ketogenic diet (KD) is safe and tolerable in MS patients. Our aim was: 1) to investigate the effects of KD on sleep complaints in patients affected by relapsing-remitting MS and 2) to verify if sleep changes can positively impact on psychological status and quality of life (QoL) in these patients. PATIENTS/METHODS: From January 2020 to November 2022, we consecutively enrolled 21 non-disabled or minimally disabled MS patients. We collected information regarding: 1) anthropometric measures; 2) psychological status by the Depression Anxiety Stress Scale-21; 3) QoL by the Multiple Sclerosis Quality of Life-54 (MSQOL-54); 4) subjective sleep complaints, i.e. sleep quality, by the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index (PSQI), and excessive daytime sleepiness (EDS), by the Epworth Sleepiness Scale (ESS). RESULTS: After 6 months of KD therapy, anthropometric measures considerably changed, psychological status significantly improved, and almost all the MSQOL-54 subscales ameliorated. Regarding sleep, we observed that the global PSQI (T0: 7.7 ± 3.1 versus T1: 4.4 ± 3.1, p = 0.002) and the ESS (T0: 7.5 ± 3.9 versus T1: 4.9 ± 3.2, p = 0.001) scores significantly decreased after KD therapy. At T1, only the global PSQI score was an independent predictor of anxiety, stress, and mental health. CONCLUSIONS: For the first time, we demonstrated that KD may improve sleep complaints in MS patients. In addition, KD seems to have a positive impact on psychological status and QoL of MS patients, mainly through improving sleep quality. Further controlled studies with larger sample sizes are needed to confirm these preliminary results.