Is CFS related to a crash of brain attention mechanism - Hypervigilance correlates with fatigue & pain scales among individuals w/ CFS, 2019, Minani

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Is Chronic fatigue syndrom (CFS) related to a crash of the brain attention mechanism - Hypervigilance correlates with fatigue and pain scales among individuals with CFS
Minani, Camilla Marylene
Master thesis

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http://hdl.handle.net/11250/2630058
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2019
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Abstract

Chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS) is a disabling condition. About 70–85% of those affected attribute their daily dysfunction to reduced cognitive abilities and muscle pains in various parts of the body. Neuroimaging studies point to structural and functional abnormalities of the central nervous system, with no relationship to the reported fatigue and pain scales. This complicates the development of the diagnosis. Evidence shows that mental fatigue and pain affect the efficiency of cognitive control. Event-related potentials(ERPs) recorded from the human scalp provide essential information about how the human brain normally processes information and about how this processing becomes abnormal in neurological or psychiatric disorders.

Method:

A visual continuous performance task (vCPT) requires sustained attention to respond to relevant visual cues and refrain from responding to irrelevant stimuli. In this study, after completing the Chalder and pain inventory tests, a vCPT test was administered to 42 individuals complying with the Fukuda criteria of CFS diagnosis. Event-related potentials (ERPs), which show direct brain response to stimuli, were retrieved and compared to a database of health 102 health individuals. A correlation and regression analysis of the ERPs was then conducted and compared to self-rated fatigue and pain inventory tests.

Results and Discussion:

Compared to the database, an enhanced P3cue component reflected hyper-vigilance amongst unexplained chronic fatigue patients along with delayed motor response and reduced error-detection resources, indicating abnormalities in executive function. This suggests that CFS could be related to central sensitisation due to long-term stress exposure.
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NTNU
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I discussed a similar concept, "excessively intense focus" here https://www.s4me.info/threads/my-cl...be-a-possibly-rarely-discussed-symptom.11743/

I can't make sense of the author's conclusion: "Compared to the database, an enhanced P3cue component reflected hyper-vigilance amongst unexplained chronic fatigue patients along with delayed motor response and reduced error-detection resources, indicating abnormalities in executive function. This suggests that CFS could be related to central sensitisation due to long-term stress exposure."

In my view excessively intense focus is closely related to mental fatigueability. Maybe an inability to avoid excessive activation of certain parts of the brain during certain tasks rapidly produces mental fatigue. Maybe "excessively intense focus" is how the brain compensates for another problem and it feels like having to put in a lot of mental effort just to achieve relatively normal performance.
 
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When I'm just normally tired, if I need to achieve a particular task I need to give it more focus, because things/tasks that typically 'work' automatically with more energy fail more often. It shouldn't need saying that if I'm crashed the need to focus on anything that I want to achieve just become so much more. All that this person has discovered is this fact, and it's a perfectly "healthy" adaptation to a low energy state.
 
This is one of those things that ring very true, at least on a superficial level. The way I have to jump between tasks at times without getting anything done is... intense.

Side-note:
strategist said:
I can't make sense of the author's conclusion: "Compared to the database, an enhanced P3cue component reflected hyper-vigilance amongst unexplained chronic fatigue patients along with delayed motor response and reduced error-detection resources, indicating abnormalities in executive function. This suggests that CFS could be related to central sensitisation due to long-term stress exposure."
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I haven't read the entire paper apart from quoted excerpts but this just sounds very weird. 'Here is some data and an idea on it, so let us randomly leap to a pet theory that is vague enough to explain everything/nothing and also assume a cause for it' can be perfectly true but it just... doesn't really say much even if it were now does it.
 
I don't know enough to really be able to tell but I'd be cautiously optimistic that they have made interesting and meaningful measurements.

I agree that it is unscientific to refer to 'central sensitization' when it seems to be a purely conceptual pet theory rather than a meaningfully defined phenomenon. But the measurements themselves may be of merit regardless.

It does seem that they are using a precompiled set of 'normal' measurements as the control, which may make sense.
 
This is not a controlled study and there are generally participation biases for cognitive testing in CFS patient groups (generally selecting for individuals with significantly above average intelligence).

The simplest conclusion is that enhanced P3cue reflects additional effort to maintain concentration on the task.
 
This is very confused and muddled. It could have been moderately competent but it's clear the conclusion was the start and has little to do with, well, anything. The conclusion is strictly an opinion and comes out of nowhere while "hypervigilance" is itself a bizarre framing for poor cognitive abilities, which is an actual interesting topic. It's just yet another attempt at "is anxiety, whatever that means, the cause of CFS, again whatever that means", part 9764.

Asking random questions that have no relation to reality, doing a bunch of things to try and support a predetermined conclusion. I have no idea what's the point of this process. Might as well try the whole dictionary as possible causes then conclude whatever they want in the process.

No wonder so little progress is made when most of what goes on is this pointless. Is BPS just a jobs program for people who can't handle real research? What's even the point of educating people for this long and at great costs when this is their work product?
 
if this is all that is required to attain a masters degree they might as well give them out as toys in cereal boxes . you ask a bunch of people with cognitive difficulties due to fatigue to concentrate on visual cues and press a button to register those cues and then claim those people are hyper vigilant . how does this equate to science or even research .
 
alktipping said:
if this is all that is required to attain a masters degree they might as well give them out as toys in cereal boxes . you ask a bunch of people with cognitive difficulties due to fatigue to concentrate on visual cues and press a button to register those cues and then claim those people are hyper vigilant . how does this equate to science or even research .
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I'll devise a questionnaire to find out!
 
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