I have to say I was pretty disappointed when I saw that Todd Davenport is involved with this project, not that his work on ME is without it's flaws, but I had the impression that he is not so fast to board the hype-train for any theory or treatment and at least makes a big effort to reasonably justify why he's working on something and what he considers important at ME. In this project I don't see any reasonable justification why this should be a priority and wonder why he would think otherwise.
News From Jarred Younger / Neuroinflammation, Pain, and Fatigue Laboratory at UAB, From Aug 2020
- Thread starter wigglethemouse
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Chandelier
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Jonathan Edwards
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Whatever this mysterious evidence might be I cannot see how anyone can know it is 'driving' anything, whatever that might mean.
From the above video:
"This is called the anterior mid-cingulate cortex, or the aMCC. Now this region drives motivation, will power and perseverance and sustained effort. And it does this by monitoring available energy in the brain and assessing whether there's sufficient energy to do the thing that you're thinking of doing."
"So if something's wrong with this region, if it's not operating properly, if there's inflammation there, the result will be a drastic suppression of physical and mental effort. So if you had a stroke in this region or a traumatic brain injury outside observers would probably see loss of motivation, perseverance, loss of attention and focus, loss of will power and loss of sustained effort. Now internally, to the person that actually has it, it's possible to describe it as 'profound fatigue' but it's more accurate to say it's the experience of enormous burden and enormous cost to do anything. Now as you're listening to me you're probably thinking 'well this sounds a lot like ME/CFS as well' and I agree."
"This is called the anterior mid-cingulate cortex, or the aMCC. Now this region drives motivation, will power and perseverance and sustained effort. And it does this by monitoring available energy in the brain and assessing whether there's sufficient energy to do the thing that you're thinking of doing."
"So if something's wrong with this region, if it's not operating properly, if there's inflammation there, the result will be a drastic suppression of physical and mental effort. So if you had a stroke in this region or a traumatic brain injury outside observers would probably see loss of motivation, perseverance, loss of attention and focus, loss of will power and loss of sustained effort. Now internally, to the person that actually has it, it's possible to describe it as 'profound fatigue' but it's more accurate to say it's the experience of enormous burden and enormous cost to do anything. Now as you're listening to me you're probably thinking 'well this sounds a lot like ME/CFS as well' and I agree."
Seems to be mostly talking about this study: Microstructural alterations in brain tissue of ME/CFS and long COVID using diffusion tensor imaging and diffusion kurtosis imaging, 2026, Singh et al (S4ME thread).
He says multiple different researchers have found differences in the region (of the anterior midcingulate cortex). I'm too foggy to really sort out if that's true (aka madly cross reference different wikipedia pages on parts of the brain that all seem to start with C).
It does seem likely in my case that some part of my brain in charge of making doing stuff really hard when your sick might be running rampant. But the fact I also feel ill and in pain etc. makes me think the root of the problem might be something further upstream. I can induce a 'loss of willpower' that sounds more like what he's talking about by quitting my ADHD medications cold turkey, it's an pretty crappy experience, but not quite the experience of illness.
He says he'll be giving a talk at a PRIME symposium on neuroscience Oct 28th.
He says multiple different researchers have found differences in the region (of the anterior midcingulate cortex). I'm too foggy to really sort out if that's true (aka madly cross reference different wikipedia pages on parts of the brain that all seem to start with C).
It does seem likely in my case that some part of my brain in charge of making doing stuff really hard when your sick might be running rampant. But the fact I also feel ill and in pain etc. makes me think the root of the problem might be something further upstream. I can induce a 'loss of willpower' that sounds more like what he's talking about by quitting my ADHD medications cold turkey, it's an pretty crappy experience, but not quite the experience of illness.
He says he'll be giving a talk at a PRIME symposium on neuroscience Oct 28th.
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@SNT Gatchaman
Is that a fair take on it from Younger, at least sufficiently plausible to chase up further?
Is that a fair take on it from Younger, at least sufficiently plausible to chase up further?
Jonathan Edwards
Senior Member (Voting Rights)
That seems pretty dubious to me. Any one brain area will do what it is programmed to do in response to its input. In what sense is that 'driving'. Will power is not something neuroscience recognises. I don't know what he means by energy here. The amount of ATP in other bits of brain? Why would that be the basis for deciding to do a gate vault or not?
Malfunction of an area that responds to inputs by initiating or not initiating actions makes a lot of sense but trying to relate that to symptoms and experiences seems highly tendentious. Brain cells will not 'feel' inflammation as 'nasty'. The sense of nastiness will occur in cells that are receiving downstream signals that encode 'nastiness' in a particular field of electrical potentials.
Since we have no good evidence for inflammation I think we are back to the stuff we have been musing over for a while here, maybe shifts in transmitters, maybe shifts in synaptic refashioning.
I don't think so, at least not based on that framing of ME/CFS. Does anyone here think "loss of motivation, perseverance, loss of attention and focus, loss of will power, and loss of sustained effort" is an accurate characterisation of this disease?
No.
If anything those are all still largely intact and it is much more a loss of capacity to put them into action, and the consequences, including the frustration at it all.
Much like a broken leg stops you from walking, but doesn't in any way impact your desire to do so.
BrokenBeaktheBrave
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Younger replied in the comment section: "Yes I want to move away from the "fatigue" language that isn't helpful."
SWA
Established Member (Voting Rights)
Brain inflammation spreads through the CSF and affects the supplementary motor area (SMA), as well as the primary motor and somatosensory cortices represented by the cortical homunculus, the term “fatigue” alone would not adequately capture the resulting neurological symptoms.
BrokenBeaktheBrave
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Jonathan Edwards
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V.R.T.
Senior Member (Voting Rights)
This just confirms to me that Younger doesn't really understand what the symptoms of ME/CFS actually are. I've suspected it from watching a lot of his videos.
Effort based language is even more innacurate and stigmatising than fatigue.
Jonathan Edwards
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He seems to be. That looks like a very backward step.
SWA
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Jonathan Edwards
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SWA
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Jonathan Edwards
Senior Member (Voting Rights)
I am sorry, I cannot be bothered to listen through Dr Younger's video. I have tried several and am not much the wiser. It sounds as if he is referring to one of the studies we have discussed here that people were not particularly impressed by.