| dc.description.abstract | Chronic pain and fatigue are two debilitating conditions causing great difficulties in
everyday life for the ones afflicted, as well as challenges for mental health
professionals. Both conditions are of unknown origin and are difficult to correctly
diagnose because of a high degree of symptom overlap, and comorbidities
contributing to further complications. Research points towards a possible mechanism
of central sensitization underlying both conditions. Indications of such a mechanism
should be reflected in the neural activity of the brain, functionally described through
ERPs. The aim of this thesis was to investigate the EEG-recordings of a group of
patients with chronic pain diagnoses and a group of patients with chronic fatigue
diagnoses with each other, as well as compare both groups to a healthy control group
to investigate whether there were any differential markers to be found with qEEG. A
MANOVA-analysis detected significant differences between these three groups, and a
follow-up discriminant analysis revealed that there were two dimensions the groups
differed along when combinations of the ERP-components were considered. Along
one dimension both patient groups were discriminated from the healthy control group,
while the pain group was discriminated from both the healthy control group and the
fatigue patient group along another dimension. A Bonferroni-correction resulted in
statistical non-significant differences between the groups when comparing single
components. However, as some of the components were strongly significant before
such corrections were made the results warrant further studies investigating these
components. Limitations of this study are discussed. | nb_NO |
