Postgraduate research job advert: Impaired selective attention as a cognitive and neurophysiological marker of ME/CFS, 2023, UK

Department: School of Psychology and Vision Sciences

Application deadline: 31 July 2023

Start date: 1 October 2023

Overview
Supervisors: Dr Doug Barrett (djkb1@le.ac.uk) & Dr David Souto (ds572@le.ac.uk)

Project Description:

Cognitive deficits are a pervasive and debilitating characteristic of Myalgic Encephalomyelitis / Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (ME/CFE) [1]. Deficits in selective attention are considered a core symptom, with sufferers reporting visual overload, difficulties filtering relevant from irrelevant visual information, and fatigue during visual search [2,3]. Attentional and visual search deficits have also been empirically demonstrated [4]. Despite the prevalence of these symptoms, the exact nature of attentional deficits in ME/CFS remains unclear. This may reflect heterogeneity in the severity of attentional deficits, or a lack of sensitivity in standardised neuropsychological assessments to attentional control mechanisms involved in everyday visual tasks. Differentiating between these possibilities is important, because specifying the way ME/CFS impacts sensory and cognitive processes is fundamental to understanding the neurological bases of sufferers’ symptoms [5]. This studentship will focus on the visual search paradigm to investigate the contribution of bottom-up sensory and top-down, attentional processes [6] to symptoms reported by sufferers on a task that is central to functional vision. The project will use laboratory-based and online computer-based tasks to contrast behavioural and physiological (eye movements and EEG) measures of selective attention during search in individuals with, and without ME/CFE.

Objectives

1. To compare sensory thresholds in ME/CFS and neurotypical controls for targets differentiated from distractors by variation on a range of visual features (e.g., luminance)
2. To compare behavioural, eye movement, and electrophysiological markers of top-down attention in ME/CFS and neurotypical controls during visual search.
3. To develop an online test that is sensitive to specific markers of visual perception and attention in ME/CFS based on evidence from the laboratory-based tasks above.

https://le.ac.uk/study/research-degrees/funded-opportunities/pvs-barrett

 

This looks quite useful. Wouldn’t really regard it as psychosomatic research.

 

Yes, I hope that they manage to recruit enough participants - and that they use appropriate criteria . . .

 

I seem to remember that Leicester University published a couple of interesting papers of visual issues in ME a few years ago.

 

That's a good thought! It does seem related and it's cool they're doing this kind of research, sounds like they're going about it in an objective way. Will be cool to see what methods they use.

 

Thread on a previous paper from Leicester University. Lead author appears to have several other papers- will try and post later- need to get back to the Tour de France now

https://www.s4me.info/threads/restr...-visibility-in-me-2018-hutchinson-et-al.2006/

 

This is looking good, I hope it will teach us something. I also wonder if the mechanism of sensory issues in pwME is similar to autism.