Thanks for running the GEEs - and yes, I completely agree. I think the participant exclusion is flawed but not that relevant because the 65% hard-task completion rate for PwME (thanks for running that analysis) shows the test was invalid for use in this study. Game over.
I've not read this, but it might answer some of the questions being raised about EEfRT and how it was used
Statistical analysis of effort expenditure for rewards task
Following the analytic strategy described by Treadway15, generalized estimating equations (GEE) were used to model the effects...
“His research protocols focus on deeply phenotyping persons with disorders characterized by aversive symptoms that develop after exposures, such as infection. Currently, he is working with patients with Myalgic Encephalomyelitis/Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (ME/CFS), Gulf War Illness (GWI), and...
Thank you, @Paddler for taking part in the study and for sharing your experience. What an ordeal. As ou say, their hypothesising has drawn attention away from the main point of the study.
I didn't know that about the study interest in interoception and it forming part of Wallit's (job?) title...
Just seen this - great work. I think it is exactly what we would expect:
EEfRT raw data analysis by @bobbler
Minimal difference on 12% win probability tasks where easy tasks are more logical
Likewise 88% win probability tasks were hard tasks are more logical
Significant though not massive...
@Hutan posted from it:
Further studies are needed to fully establish the validity and reliability of the new spectral indices for testing muscle performance in the clinical, rehabilitation, and sports setting.
So, a tiny study, not validated, least of all for comparing ill vs healthy.
Wallit...
This is very important for interpreting results. It's a tiny study. I don't think a meaningful comparison of HV vs patients is possible for a complex pattern like the Dimitrov Index. I suspect any conclusions based on the difference are not statistically valid.
Correction: the figure says it...
To be fair, it is designed to fatigue healthy people (that is the effort, the cost), but it is explicitly designed not to exhaust...
...precisely.
That's easy - the term was coined for the new paper while silently repurposing a reward motivation test as an undefined 'effort preference' test.
A couple of points I left off my 'final' post:
@bobbler quoted Treadway saying that men were more likely than women to choose hard tasks. The HVs had a slightly higher male ratio - I wonder if the study allowed for that? The marginal 0.04 p value for hard choice ratio being lower for ME folk...
I think there might be 2 things going on here.
1. Effort preference, which means nothing and is a null test for the study population.
2. The separate rather odd fadings about lack of central fatigue (as shown by transcranial magnetic stimulation), which might mean something. I haven't read this...
My head is spinning and I'm going to bow out of the EFFrt discussion. Here's what I think I've learnt from others' helpful posts (and quotes from the underlying papers):
1. EEfRT was developed to probe anhedonia (an inability or relative inability to experience pleasure, presumably the rough...
Does the EEfRT test mean anything when used on PwME vs healthy volunteers?
Thanks to @bobbler for digging out so much useful information. I'm afraid I bailed out after reading ten pages of printed posts, and haven't reached the end of this ever-growing thread. My thoughts so far:
Comparing...
edited for clarity
I think that at an online conference a couple of years ago, Workwell said they had data on about 400 subjects. I don’t understand why they haven’t published an analysis of al their data, which would go a long way to clarify the significance of these studies. At that...
But deconditioning is primarily about fitness and is measured by aerobic capacity, specifically by CPET - and the study demonstrated deconditioning. It would be odd if a group of people with ME were not. Grip strength and muscle mass are measures more of strength than fitness.
The problem for...
I'm not sure if there is a logical flaw. I believe they are saying is that effort preference is a brain-related issue, not a muscle-deconditioning one. Whether or not effort preference is a meaningful concept is another matter. But I'm still trying to wrap my mind around the whole effort...
Astonishing. Again: why does this not happen in every other limiting illness? And ME-like syndrome would be the norm if this were true.
More pertinently, they collected no evidence that allowed them to plausibly speculate along these lines. What they could easily have done is asked their...
Frustratingly, supplementary data table S7 gives group scores for PROMS, though only the aggregate Physical and Mental components from the SF36.:
HV (n=21) HV (n=21) PI-ME/CFS (n=17) PI-ME/CFS (n=17)
Mean , SD p-value (Mann-Whitney U)
SF-36 Physical Component Score HV: 56.7, 3.1 | ME/CFS...
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