The Foundation is embarking on an ambitious three year long programme of research into why so many CFS/ME sufferers experience heightened levels of pain.  The research team will use state of the art fMRI (functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging) to scan the brains of CFS/ME patients to see how they differ from the brains of healthy controls when experiencing potentially painful stimuli (e.g. pressure and heat) and to see how two of the brain's natural pain chemical transmitters (dopamine and the opioids) are involved in the pain pathways and the response to pain.  The team will also see whether the differences in pain levels are related to differences in a particular gene in CFS/ME patients.

The study will cost over two hundred and thirty thousand pounds.  You can read a more detailed explanation of the research here.

The Foundation's Honorary Director, Anne Faulkner said: "We have a daunting task ahead of us if we are to enable this work to go ahead.  Financial difficulties are facing us all but our supporters have enabled us to achieve so much in the past and we must now look to them once again to help us raise funds to take forward this new and exciting research.

If you would like to help us fund this and future research you can make a donation here today.