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Thanks for the reply, @Simon M! I do see that the proof of the pudding will be in the eating, as it were. As an exercise that can generate new research questions, this study is amazing! I also get your point that we could identify SNPs that could be linked to certain possible confounding...

Hmm, at a surface level, yes, but the implications could be very different. Imagine that you had a particular ethnic group that got marginalised as a result of a some historical military invasion (as has happened all the time throughout history). Members of that ethnic group might be more likely...

Can we say this for sure, though? I understand that you can identify significantly different SNPs for an enormous variety of different groupings. e.g, socioeconomic status, and even political views. Because there are always nonrandom patterns that determine who ends up in which category.

100+ likes to this! Brilliant, @Arvo! The motte and bailey idea is such a great way of capturing what psychosomatic proponents do! They make a bold claim - like CFS is a consequence of aberrant thoughts and behaviours. That's the bailey. Then when challenged, they retreat to the "motte", a...

Hi @Jonathan Edwards! I think the problem with this review is that it selected only studies that mentioned terms related to the brain stem by name. Studies that didn't find anything in that region might not mention any such terms so they are not included in the review. Therefore, we have no...

Just thought I'd pitch in here: I've done a couple of trials of mycophenolate to treat my autoinflammatory (periodic fever) symptoms. I get flu-like episodes where my inflammatory markers go up (e.g, CRP). Since mycophenolate is supposed to inhibit production of CD4+ and CD8+ t cells (which are...

Hi @Arnie Pye! You wrote this comment a year ago, but I just noticed you didn't get a reply. "Network dynamics" is a pretty loose term, but it generally refers methods that try to measure the degree to which activity in two brain regions is "synchronised". One common method is to put people in...

Thanks for posting your thoughts, @Murph. I think I agree with your conclusion! The idea needs to be fleshed out quite a bit - which phenomena related to electrical potentials are abnormal in PwMES and why do they result in ME symptoms specifically? There is some neuroscience work on...

This is interesting, @V.R.T. I have noticed an increasing tendency for psychological and neuroscientific evidence to be misappropriated to support some model of society or why we should improve it. It is not that I disagree with the models or recommendations, its that the psyc/neuro evidence has...

Yes, this!! Well said, @Yann04!

Gosh yes, they're establishing references they can draw on later to justify entire reliance on patient-reported outcome measures in clinical trials. Interesting how the authors show their hand here - they mention the idea of "inconsistency", revealing that they believe FND has a psychological...

I looked at how they measured these things, so you won't have to! Internalizing Symptoms: The primary caregiver was asked whether, now or within the past 6 months, each of the following items were true of their adolescent: sudden changes in mood or feelings; feels or complains that no one loves...

@JellyBabyKid, you mentioned you have been diagnosed with PTSD. I'm so sorry to hear that. I hope you are getting the treatment you need! Above, I was talking above about whether its helpful to PwMEs to use the looser term "trauma" in their advocacy. I wasn't talking about actual PTSD Which is...

Very concerning. From the website: The most worrying things are the way this stuff targets just about every illness - RA, heart disease, cancer, diabetes. Its seductive and alluring, because of course everyone wants to cure their illness, and the narrative espoused gives people permission to...

@forestglip, thanks for checking. Its really unclear, but there are two different places where they mention depression symptoms. The list I posted on was the one from the top paragraph on page 11, and here, they do seem to be comparing TNF-alpha levels for those with and without the specified...

Totally agree that medical gaslighting does a lot of harm. But I am worried about the ever-increasing loose use of the term "trauma" to add power to an argument, to the point where it does nothing but serve as a form of rhetorical device. Making people feel as though they're crazy when they're...

Exploring TNF-alpha is an interesting idea. From what I understand, its a pretty important pro-inflammatory cytokine that could be responsible for a lot of bad shit. My worry in this piece is that those methods for assessing/diagnosing depression are probably not valid for this population. They...

I see where you're coming from @Jonathan Edwards. The term MECFS is one that many patients find helpful despite its negative associations, and in that sense, FND should be no different. The difficulty with FND is that I think the term carries more causal assumptions than MECFS, ME or even CFS...

I'm coming late to the party here, but it doesn't take much to work out that "functional" does not mean "brain malfunction at a subtle level without structural change". Epilespy is never called "functional", although by that definition, it should be. This is the game, the dance - say you mean...

In this type of symptom-network modelling work, "bridge" symptoms are ones that are commonly endorsed by a wide variety of people irrespective of their specific symptom presentation. Common "bridge symptoms" are sleep problems, fatigue, and concentration problems. Symptoms might behave in this...