Brain inflammation

Discussion in 'Pain and Inflammation' started by Sallycatherineharris, Sep 29, 2019.

  1. Grigor

    Grigor Senior Member (Voting Rights)

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  2. wigglethemouse

    wigglethemouse Senior Member (Voting Rights)

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  3. Esther12

    Esther12 Senior Member (Voting Rights)

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    That article sounds worrying overall. Van der Meer is not a good person to have involved.
     
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  4. mango

    mango Senior Member (Voting Rights)

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    Many Swedish BPS proponents too, for example the Jonsjö/Olsson team with their ME = "sickness behaviour" hypothesis.

    Inflammation seems to be a major part of behavioural studies nowadays, for example in so called "psychoneuroimmunology", "psychoneuroendocrinology" etc. Especially in the context of stress, fatigue, burnout, depression etc. But the focus seems to be on how inflammation (or the "sickness behaviour" that lingers after an inflammation) changes the patient's behaviour/feelings/thoughts, not the inflammation itself.

    Proposed treatments are, unsurprisingly, ACT, CBT, graded activity/graded exposure etc.
     
    Last edited: Aug 16, 2020
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  5. dave30th

    dave30th Senior Member (Voting Rights)

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    That's really interesting. I'd heard the meme that they'd shown CBT led to changes in the brain--I think Wessely made that point somewhere. But I had no idea that they did the same thing essentially that Wessely and Chalder did in their most recent study--they measured changes before and after CBT and attributed the changes to the CBT. The comparison in the brain study was a group of healthy controls, measured at the same two time points but with no CBT. It makes no sense. You need a control group of patients who don't get CBT to say anything about whether CBT did anything.

    In reading the abstract, I see where the fallacy might come in. The rightness of CBT is a given--they're not testing CBT. It's already been proven to work. They're testing whether the known benefits from CBT are also reflected in brain changes. If you know the CBT already works, then any brain changes that you can claim are linked to the specific cognitive problems facing patients were obviously also induced by the CBT.
     
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  6. Esther12

    Esther12 Senior Member (Voting Rights)

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  7. dreampop

    dreampop Senior Member (Voting Rights)

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    Wow, so they really improved from the CBT increasing cortisol study (https://www.kcl.ac.uk/ioppn/depts/pm/research/cfs/publications/assets/2009/Robertssalivary.pdf), where they opted for no control group at all. And that reasoning is exactly given in the the cortisol paper. You can't have controls because you can't depirve them of an effective treatment.
     
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  8. Barry

    Barry Senior Member (Voting Rights)

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    i.e. Them saying it would be unethical and/or impractical to do it scientifically, therefore they consider it legitimate and 'scientific' to do it unscientifically. A common theme for many BPS'ites, and an argument that seems to convince many.
     
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  9. spinoza577

    spinoza577 Senior Member (Voting Rights)

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    Nerve issues do not equal psychological issues.

    I learned the following method from @rvallee:

    Repeat several times: Nerve issues do not equal psychological issues. Nerve issues do not equal psychological issues. Nerve issues. Do not equal. Psychological issues.
     
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  10. DigitalDrifter

    DigitalDrifter Senior Member (Voting Rights)

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    Merged
    "Evidence supports presence of encephalitis"
    1995, Charles Shepherd
    *****************

    https://www.bmj.com/content/310/6990/1330.2

     
    Last edited by a moderator: Mar 13, 2025 at 5:25 PM
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  11. Jonathan Edwards

    Jonathan Edwards Senior Member (Voting Rights)

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    I think Charles may have changed his mind about that. He was later in favour of changing the name from myalgic encephalomyelitis to myalgic encephalopathy on the grounds that inflammation was not established.

    And although Charles has been a great advocate he may not be the best authority on neuropathology.
     
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