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I tend to agree with @Andy. People like this should be called out on their bs. Politely and patiently, we should expose it for what it really is. Its not a good idea to allow a tweet like this to go unchallenged. People who don't know the field may think he's making a good point.

Yes. If we made it a "thing", then we could raise questions about the motives of a research groups who choose to select their own patient advisory group. Maybe its bigger than S4ME. Maybe it should include representatives from all patient groups (that could cause grief for those looking for an...

Thanks for posting, @Sly Saint. It has some good information, but also some that's incorrect/unjustified. It would be great if they could collaborate with someone from here that knows about psychological therapies. To really make all the arguments fully justified and watertight. Quite a few of...

What an absolutely fascinating idea! I love the idea of a group that are selected by the patients, rather than by the researchers to best suit their agenda. I wonder how we would go about doing such a thing?

I don't think I've explained what I mean by everyday memory very well. A lot of things that seem like memory failures are not actually failures of memory itself, they're failures in some other really sophisticated cognitive skill that operates on the memory. So for example, remembering you have...

Update: I've had a few weeks on which to observed myself on the ranitidine, and unfortunately, my conclusion is: no effect. My pattern is pretty variable from day to day, so it takes a while to get a good feel for whether there's been any overall change. bummer, eh? :(

Thanks, @Subtropical Island. What you say sort of complicates things, because if everything's uniformly bad, then we don't have any leads on what to test for. Maybe I should be asking what sorts of problems people don't generally experience. No, that's impossible to answer. Maybe I need to know...

I do think it can be good sometimes to have an objective other (not a friend or relation) to bounce ideas off when you're in distress. Sometimes its easier to think through problems in that situation and come up with positive solutions. Ideally, the person could also suggest some too. Plus...

But if there's no quality control, it will just be self-publishing, which we can all do already, and just load our new articles up on RG or whatever. What researchers want from a journal these days is mainly reputational clout, the quality stamp, and the visibility that comes from being in a...

I know I should stop talking now, but I'm not sure I agree with this. There are just such vast quantities of stuff out there now, and I just get so tired of having to wade through the sheer volume of it. If its bad, and its not published, then at least it doesn't have influence, and I don't have...

I suppose the open access model that's been developed in places like PLOSone and BMC means you have to make the reviewers' identities public. And all their comments. So if it looks bad for the editor, that might prevent it.

Its all very interesting. But I am worried about COIs. Universities have interests in their own researchers getting published. @Jonathan Edwards, you're right that if the admin was fully delegated, that could work. But its still a bit like an independent survey of toothpaste preferences being...

Yes, I'm a bit worried about any government's motives for poking around in people's private lives with the aims of reducing healthcare costs. It so often ends up in intrusive constraints and edicts. I think I can imagine a great episode of Black Mirror, where fat people are required to wear...

@jeckylberry, did you know there's a bird lovers' thread at S4ME? Its under "Off topic Chit-Chat" in the community lounge section. I've never ventured on there, you bird lovers can be a fruity lot.

That must be a total bummer, @Peter Trewhitt. Especially given your profession. Its very sad to read some of the things people are saying. The navigation problems @Peter Trewhitt, @Wonko @Invisible Woman and others talk about sound really "hippocampal" to me. About retrieving familiar...

Yes, the brain and cardiovascular (CV) system are really closely intertwined. In healthy people, CV efficiency - as indicated by low resting heart rate and high heart rate variability - is associated with good performance on effortful control tasks. You've probably seen all that recent research...

Yes, that sort of makes sense. The DSM diagnosis of Alzheimer's requires you to have memory problems plus one of the following: language difficulties, visuospatial difficulties or problems with higher motor control. So technically you need one of these too for the diagnosis. But you're right. A...

Yes, that's true, but there are some tasks that are effortful for everyone. No matter how good you are at them, you can only do them for a short time. Intense focussed attention, etc. That's the sort I'm interested in.

That's very interesting, @Inara, and very much sits with the ideas I'm mulling over right now. So its this: fMRI studies suggest that in order to do well on certain kinds of "effortful" mental tasks, we need to first increase blood supply to key parts of the brain that are needed for the task...

It depends on how much work I'm able to do in the future, but I'm a cognitive neuropsychologist by training, and I'm interested! @Alvin, it makes total sense that the dementia test didn't fit your problems, they're mainly designed to test memory, which is the primary, and often first appearing...