Neuroimaging of Rheumatoid Arthritis Related Fatigue

• Research type

  Research Study

• Full title

  Investigating Neural Mechanisms and Biomarkers for Rheumatoid Arthritis Related Fatigue

• IRAS ID

  132408

• Contact name

  Neil Basu

• Contact email

  neilbasu@abdn.ac.uk

• Sponsor organisation

  University of Aberdeen

• Research summary

  Rheumatoid arthritis (RA) related fatigue is a significant burden for patients. However, few therapies exist to alleviate this symptom. Current barriers tot he development and study of future therapies include a poor understanding of the symptom’s underlying causes and an absence of biological markers to aid its assessment.

  We seek to study the role of the brain in the development and assessment of RA related fatigue. By building upon our existing experience of applying sophisticated Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) techniques to non-invasively visualise the brain, we plan to image the brains of 60 fatigued RA patients at two time points six months apart. Specifically, we aim to characterise changes in the brain according to changing fatigue status and to study the influence of disease activity on the brains of fatigued individuals. Lastly we plan to make comparisons with data from another inflammatory rheumatic disease.

• REC name

  North of Scotland Research Ethics Committee 1

• REC reference

  13/NS/0055

• Date of REC Opinion

  1 Jul 2013

• REC opinion

  Further Information Favourable Opinion