Quantitative separation of the depressive phase of Bipolar Disorder and Major Depressive Disorder using Electrovestibulography (2019) Lithgow et al.

Cheshire · Apr 8, 2019

This left me perplexed. Is it complete quackery or a promising diagnostic method?

Objectives. No electrophysiological, neuroimaging or genetic markers have been established that strongly relate to the diagnostic separation of Bipolar Disorder (BD) and Major Depressive Disorder (MDD). This paper’s objective is to describe the potential of features, extracted from the recording of electrical activity from the outer ear canal, in a process called Electrovestibulography (EVestG), for identifying depressed and partly remitted/remitted MDD and BD patients from each other.

Methods. From EVestG data four sensory vestibulo-acoustic features were extracted from both background (no movement) and using a single supine-vertical translation stimulus to distinguish 27 controls, 39 MDD and 43 BD patients.

Results. Using leave-one-out-cross-validation, unbiased parametric and non-parametric classification routines resulted in 78-83% (2-3 features), 80-81% (1-2 features) and 66-68% (3 features) accuracies for separation of MDD from BD, controls from depressed (BD & MDD) and the 3-way separation of BD from MDD from control groups, respectively.

The main limitations of this study were the inability to fully disentangle the impact of prescribed medication from the responses and also the limited sample size.

Conclusions. EVestG features can reliably identify depressed and partly remitted/remitted MDD and BD patients from each other.
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https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/15622975.2019.1599143?journalCode=iwbp20

Wonko · Apr 8, 2019

I'd be interested in the thinking that lead to this experiment being carried out. Coz on the face of it it's complete and utter twaddle.

Why would electrical activity in the outer ear canal have anything to do with anything, other than maybe what a person was hearing at that moment? and probably not even that.

Have they tested the more likely idea that depression is closely related to the cost per 100g of pork pie in the patients fridge? i.e. if nit pork pie, or cheap pork pie, patient is likely to be socioeconomically disadvantaged, and thus likely to be depressed. Obviously religion is a confounding factor, or may be.

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Quantitative separation of the depressive phase of Bipolar Disorder and Major Depressive Disorder using Electrovestibulography (2019) Lithgow et al.

Cheshire Moderator Staff Member

Wonko Senior Member (Voting Rights)

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Quantitative separation of the depressive phase of Bipolar Disorder and Major Depressive Disorder using Electrovestibulography (2019) Lithgow et al.

Cheshire Moderator Staff Member

Wonko Senior Member (Voting Rights)

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