Acute Encephalitis blinds doctors to possibility of Chronic Inflammation

Komaroff said: "There is, and you've heard it repeatedly in the last three days, a theory that CFS might reflect an ongoing activation of immune cells in the brain, not in the periphery, but in the brain" and he went on to discuss the Japanese study that clearly showed an increased signal, giving evidence of immune activation in multiple areas of the brain, the intensity of the signal correlating with cognitive impairment.

In the Question and Answer session, Komaroff was asked if neuro-inflammation was not encephalomyelitis, to which he replied: "Yes.  If it were confirmed by multiple other investigators it would, for me, say that there is a low-grade, chronic encephalitis in these patients, that the image we clinicians have of encephalitis as an acute and often dramatic clinical presentation that can even be fatal has – may have – blinded us to the possibility that there may be an entity of long-lasting – many years long – cyclic, chronic, neuro-inflammation and that that underlies the symptoms of this illness", commenting that it was "entirely plausible and these data are consistent with it".

http://www.meactionuk.org.uk/Komaroff-Summary-San-Francisco-March-2014.htm