8 ms·

Brain activity pattern may be early sign of schizophrenia

77 points by chablent 8y ago

0xcde4c3db 8y ago
> “That really gets at the heart of how we can translate this clinically, because we can get in earlier and earlier to identify aberrant networks in the hopes that we can do earlier interventions, and possibly even prevent psychiatric disorders" Get the evidence for the intervention before deploying it, please. The existing track record of mental illness "prevention" efforts isn't very good. The most infamous example is probably critical incident stress debriefing, which some studies found increased PTSD risk.
- thwy12321 8y ago
  This exactly. Often times "intervention" means some heavy life debilitating medication. Sure it may stop the psychosis, but at a heavy and possibly life long price. There is no accountability for health care in this country, only "disaster prevention" taken at all cost to the mad patient. I believe that with increased data collection and the push for ML systems, we will see that the emperor truly has no clothes. Lots of intervention methods have no positive outcome on long term recovery, but there is no transparency about outcomes, costs, decisions, medications, etc.
  - tcj_phx 8y ago
    > Often times "intervention" means some heavy life debilitating medication. Lobotomies and electro-shock "therapy" didn't cure patients, they just made patients more manageable. The tranquilizers (later rebranded as "anti-psychotics") served the same purpose: treatment without cure. "Akathisia is a movement disorder characterized by a feeling of inner restlessness and inability to stay still. [...] Complications include suicide. [...] Akathisia is frequently associated with the use of dopamine receptor antagonist antipsychotic drugs." [0] [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Akathisia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Akathisia > Sure it may stop the psychosis, but at a heavy and possibly life long price. The terrible medications aren't even necessary to help people recover from psychotic states. The Quakers found that putting their psychotics in an "asylum" and feeding them four meals a day allowed most patients to recover over time [1][2]. [1] https://books.google.com/books?isbn=0786723793 https://books.google.com/books?isbn=0786723793 [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lunatic_asylum#Humanitarian_reform https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lunatic_asylum#Humanitarian_re... > [...] we will see that the emperor truly has no clothes. Lots of intervention methods have no positive outcome on long term recovery, Many common medical interventions 'miss the forest for the trees'. "Stress" (biological/emotional) is the major factor in most conditions, but this is not covered very well in medical training.
    - msla 8y ago
      > Lobotomies and electro-shock "therapy" didn't cure patients ECT is very useful for some things: ECT is used for refractory major depression (aka treatment resistant depression (TRD)), which is major depression which doesn't respond to drug therapy (that is what 'refractory' means). It is very effective in that role: http://ajp.psychiatryonline.org/doi/abs/10.1176/appi.ajp.2012.12050648 http://ajp.psychiatryonline.org/doi/abs/10.1176/appi.ajp.201...: > ECT is often effective for severely depressed patients who have not responded to multiple medication trials or who are at imminent risk of suicide. This issue's Treatment in Psychiatry highlights the safety and efficacy of ECT while stressing the importance of the pre-ECT medical evaluation and consent process. > Electroconvulsive therapy (ECT), which has been in use for 75 years, is an important treatment for severe and treatment-resistant depression. Although it is acknowledged as the most effective acute treatment for severe mood and psychotic disorders, it remains controversial because of misperceptions about its use and lack of familiarity among health care professionals about modern ECT technique. The authors present an illustrative case of a patient for whom ECT is indicated. They review the basic and clinical science related to ECT’s mechanism of action and discuss clinical issues in the administration of a course of ECT, including the consent process. More information: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3514332/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3514332/: > The clinical efficacy of ECT in TRD is well established, with 60% to 90% rate of acute response in TRD [3], and it is indicated specifically in severe psychotic depression, catatonia and delirious mania. It's a very effective last-ditch therapy for some very serious disorders.
      - tcj_phx 8y ago
        > ECT is very useful for some things: ECT's cheerleaders promote their machines. The ECT-resistance claims there is considerable evidence against the use of electrically-induced brain damage [0]. Who am I to believe? I'm biased towards the detractors, as I have personally witnesses the harm perpetrated under the mental health industry's usual practices. Dr. Breggin says there was recently a breakthrough in class action lawsuits against ECT manufacturers [1]. [0] http://www.ectresources.org/ http://www.ectresources.org/ [1] https://www.madinamerica.com/2018/10/huge-breakthrough-ect-lawsuit/ https://www.madinamerica.com/2018/10/huge-breakthrough-ect-l... > (aka treatment resistant depression (TRD)), which is major depression which doesn't respond to drug therapy There are some drugs that are somewhat useful for helping people out of their depressed state, while the actual causes of their condition are addressed. These drugs fell out of favor as their patents expired, and as less-effective "anti-depressants" were patented. Each generation of anti-depressant is less effective than the generation which preceded it. The SSRIs are the least-effective anti-depressants of all - these drugs might help some patients not because of their effect on Serotonin, but on the neurosteroids [2]. [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neurosteroid#Role_in_antidepressant_action https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neurosteroid#Role_in_antidepre... Depression is partially a case of 'exhaustion' due to 'biological stress' (with 'emotional stress' as the usual contributing factor). Its causes and appropriate treatments have been discussed in the scientific literature, but the actual findings are incompatible with the patent medicine industry's business model. Thanks for your comment, as the process which culminated in this response was quite worthwhile for me.
- esalman 8y ago
  Resting-state functional MRI (fMRI) based studies are not used to make clinical assessment yet, and the researchers themselves will admit that it is not ready for application. The prediction accuracy in most replicable studies hover around 80-85%. Also, fMRI only tells you part of the story, and multi-modal data fusion is key to get the full picture of what it happening in the brain. Once the accuracy reaches close to 99%, it will eventually find clinical application.
  - 0xcde4c3db 8y ago
    I'm not talking about direct use of fMRI, but rather that some mental health experts are so laser-focused on the problem of untreated mental illness (not without reason, it should be said) that they argue for widely deploying interventions merely because those interventions are supposed to work rather than because they're demonstrated to work.
    - loceng 8y ago
      Another understudied issue is that it may be multiple interventions in parallel that will have a stabilizing or healing result; speaking primarily of non-medicated options.
    - esalman 8y ago
      I guess we are talking about different topics :)
marmaduke 8y ago
> patients who developed psychosis, the superior temporal gyrus became more connected to limbic regions Increased correlation between auditory and emotional neural regions. This is a little flimsy.
xchip 8y ago
TL;DR: "a part of the brain known as the superior temporal gyrus, which is involved in auditory processing, is highly connected to brain regions involved in sensory perception and motor control. However, in patients who developed psychosis, the superior temporal gyrus became more connected to limbic regions, which are involved in processing emotions" News should be written like emails, the most important info should be at the top, an not near the end or scattered so you have to read the whole thing to understand what is going on.
- joveian 8y ago
  That last part of the second sentence should not appear in the article at all, it is inaccurate. It suggests that the limbic system in general is involved in processing emotions, which is not the case although it has often been presented that way for non-scientific reasons.
millenialdev 8y ago
I've been interested if I could do something like this research at home. http://neurosky.com/ http://neurosky.com/ is what I used I use for brain monitoring. Maybe someone here can give me some tips.
- SNACKeR99 8y ago
  Looks like a fun thing to experiment - what headset to you recommend?

77 points by chablent 8y ago

> “That really gets at the heart of how we can translate this clinically, because we can get in earlier and earlier to identify aberrant networks in the hopes that we can do earlier interventions, and possibly even prevent psychiatric disorders" Get the evidence for the intervention before deploying it, please. The existing track record of mental illness "prevention" efforts isn't very good. The most infamous example is probably critical incident stress debriefing, which some studies found increased PTSD risk.

thwy12321 8y ago
This exactly. Often times "intervention" means some heavy life debilitating medication. Sure it may stop the psychosis, but at a heavy and possibly life long price. There is no accountability for health care in this country, only "disaster prevention" taken at all cost to the mad patient. I believe that with increased data collection and the push for ML systems, we will see that the emperor truly has no clothes. Lots of intervention methods have no positive outcome on long term recovery, but there is no transparency about outcomes, costs, decisions, medications, etc.
- tcj_phx 8y ago
  > Often times "intervention" means some heavy life debilitating medication. Lobotomies and electro-shock "therapy" didn't cure patients, they just made patients more manageable. The tranquilizers (later rebranded as "anti-psychotics") served the same purpose: treatment without cure. "Akathisia is a movement disorder characterized by a feeling of inner restlessness and inability to stay still. [...] Complications include suicide. [...] Akathisia is frequently associated with the use of dopamine receptor antagonist antipsychotic drugs." [0] [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Akathisia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Akathisia > Sure it may stop the psychosis, but at a heavy and possibly life long price. The terrible medications aren't even necessary to help people recover from psychotic states. The Quakers found that putting their psychotics in an "asylum" and feeding them four meals a day allowed most patients to recover over time [1][2]. [1] https://books.google.com/books?isbn=0786723793 https://books.google.com/books?isbn=0786723793 [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lunatic_asylum#Humanitarian_reform https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lunatic_asylum#Humanitarian_re... > [...] we will see that the emperor truly has no clothes. Lots of intervention methods have no positive outcome on long term recovery, Many common medical interventions 'miss the forest for the trees'. "Stress" (biological/emotional) is the major factor in most conditions, but this is not covered very well in medical training.
  - msla 8y ago
    > Lobotomies and electro-shock "therapy" didn't cure patients ECT is very useful for some things: ECT is used for refractory major depression (aka treatment resistant depression (TRD)), which is major depression which doesn't respond to drug therapy (that is what 'refractory' means). It is very effective in that role: http://ajp.psychiatryonline.org/doi/abs/10.1176/appi.ajp.2012.12050648 http://ajp.psychiatryonline.org/doi/abs/10.1176/appi.ajp.201...: > ECT is often effective for severely depressed patients who have not responded to multiple medication trials or who are at imminent risk of suicide. This issue's Treatment in Psychiatry highlights the safety and efficacy of ECT while stressing the importance of the pre-ECT medical evaluation and consent process. > Electroconvulsive therapy (ECT), which has been in use for 75 years, is an important treatment for severe and treatment-resistant depression. Although it is acknowledged as the most effective acute treatment for severe mood and psychotic disorders, it remains controversial because of misperceptions about its use and lack of familiarity among health care professionals about modern ECT technique. The authors present an illustrative case of a patient for whom ECT is indicated. They review the basic and clinical science related to ECT’s mechanism of action and discuss clinical issues in the administration of a course of ECT, including the consent process. More information: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3514332/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3514332/: > The clinical efficacy of ECT in TRD is well established, with 60% to 90% rate of acute response in TRD [3], and it is indicated specifically in severe psychotic depression, catatonia and delirious mania. It's a very effective last-ditch therapy for some very serious disorders.
    - tcj_phx 8y ago
      > ECT is very useful for some things: ECT's cheerleaders promote their machines. The ECT-resistance claims there is considerable evidence against the use of electrically-induced brain damage [0]. Who am I to believe? I'm biased towards the detractors, as I have personally witnesses the harm perpetrated under the mental health industry's usual practices. Dr. Breggin says there was recently a breakthrough in class action lawsuits against ECT manufacturers [1]. [0] http://www.ectresources.org/ http://www.ectresources.org/ [1] https://www.madinamerica.com/2018/10/huge-breakthrough-ect-lawsuit/ https://www.madinamerica.com/2018/10/huge-breakthrough-ect-l... > (aka treatment resistant depression (TRD)), which is major depression which doesn't respond to drug therapy There are some drugs that are somewhat useful for helping people out of their depressed state, while the actual causes of their condition are addressed. These drugs fell out of favor as their patents expired, and as less-effective "anti-depressants" were patented. Each generation of anti-depressant is less effective than the generation which preceded it. The SSRIs are the least-effective anti-depressants of all - these drugs might help some patients not because of their effect on Serotonin, but on the neurosteroids [2]. [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neurosteroid#Role_in_antidepressant_action https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neurosteroid#Role_in_antidepre... Depression is partially a case of 'exhaustion' due to 'biological stress' (with 'emotional stress' as the usual contributing factor). Its causes and appropriate treatments have been discussed in the scientific literature, but the actual findings are incompatible with the patent medicine industry's business model. Thanks for your comment, as the process which culminated in this response was quite worthwhile for me.
esalman 8y ago
Resting-state functional MRI (fMRI) based studies are not used to make clinical assessment yet, and the researchers themselves will admit that it is not ready for application. The prediction accuracy in most replicable studies hover around 80-85%. Also, fMRI only tells you part of the story, and multi-modal data fusion is key to get the full picture of what it happening in the brain. Once the accuracy reaches close to 99%, it will eventually find clinical application.
- 0xcde4c3db 8y ago
  I'm not talking about direct use of fMRI, but rather that some mental health experts are so laser-focused on the problem of untreated mental illness (not without reason, it should be said) that they argue for widely deploying interventions merely because those interventions are supposed to work rather than because they're demonstrated to work.
  - loceng 8y ago
    Another understudied issue is that it may be multiple interventions in parallel that will have a stabilizing or healing result; speaking primarily of non-medicated options.
  - esalman 8y ago
    I guess we are talking about different topics :)

marmaduke 8y ago

> patients who developed psychosis, the superior temporal gyrus became more connected to limbic regions Increased correlation between auditory and emotional neural regions. This is a little flimsy.

xchip 8y ago

TL;DR: "a part of the brain known as the superior temporal gyrus, which is involved in auditory processing, is highly connected to brain regions involved in sensory perception and motor control. However, in patients who developed psychosis, the superior temporal gyrus became more connected to limbic regions, which are involved in processing emotions" News should be written like emails, the most important info should be at the top, an not near the end or scattered so you have to read the whole thing to understand what is going on.

joveian 8y ago
That last part of the second sentence should not appear in the article at all, it is inaccurate. It suggests that the limbic system in general is involved in processing emotions, which is not the case although it has often been presented that way for non-scientific reasons.

millenialdev 8y ago

I've been interested if I could do something like this research at home. http://neurosky.com/ http://neurosky.com/ is what I used I use for brain monitoring. Maybe someone here can give me some tips.

SNACKeR99 8y ago
Looks like a fun thing to experiment - what headset to you recommend?