6 ms·

Dyslexia caused by faulty signal processing in brain

17 points by llambda 14y ago

loceng 14y ago
"... shown that many difficulties associated with dyslexia can potentially be traced back to a malfunction of the medial geniculate body in the thalamus." I always wonder if things like Dyslexia are more a symptom from something else, like how ADD can be caused in people who have food sensitivities or allergies but don't realize it - or perhaps a terrible childhood where the person / mind / brain learned distraction behaviours for coping, and therefore until those distraction behaviours are explored that ADD person will never learn how to focus. And why is it considered faulty? How can one determine the pros and cons of how a mind will develop due to how the brain works? It really bothers me that much of very narrow scientifically-done research doesn't reach back out into a holistic view. I understand that if you keep the narrow context than their statements remain 'true' - however that isn't beneficial on an individual-by-individual basis when our body and minds are so complex. A quick fix sounds nice, is 'cheap' in cost (if you ignore side-effects and that many times medications are bandaids that tend to fall off or let symptoms [from something underlying] worsen), and is purely driven by profit-motive - at least that's where funding comes from, even if it's in researcher's hearts to trying to find answers to help others. We know things like MSG and artificial red food dies cause ADD in a large percentage of the population, though in North America we still allow it in our food - whereas in much of Europe such things are ban. Anyway, clearly I am for preventative/proactive health and not putting temporary bandaids on things. Research is showing more and more that bandaids (not literally) end up costing society more than dealing with the base issues.
- Nicole060 14y ago
  "We know things like MSG and artificial red food dies cause ADD in a large percentage of the population, though in North America we still allow it in our food - whereas in much of Europe such things are ban." First, MSG has not been banned in Europe, and you can buy this food additive and use it for your own home cooking, I should know because I sometimes use it instead of salt. Second, you'll have a hard time finding an actual study proving the harmful effect of MSG, and links to websites with no credibility like rense.com doesn't count. It's not a coincidence that most links point to stuff like that on the first page of google when you search for MSG and they are popular among conspiracy nuts/fear mongers. If you listen to the conspiracy theorists, MSG causes diabetes, alzheimer, autism, heavy migraine/headaches, parkinson, seizures, addiction to MSG itself.. stop propagating the bull*.
  - saurik 14y ago
    So, I know nothing about MSG, but when I see people say things like "you'll have a hard time finding an actual study proving the harmful effect of X" I tend to go check, as it is do easy to do so: it makes for a good check of academic honesty. Regardless, this claim is clearly wrong: PubMed has tons of papers about random things being associated or impplicated with MSG, including neurological effects. In particular, here are some papers about excitotoxins (MSG in particular) and fibromyalgia. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11408989 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11408989 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22766026 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22766026
    - gdsafsadfsaasdf 14y ago
      >The elimination of MSG and other excitotoxins from the diets of patients with fibromyalgia offers a benign treatment option that has the potential for dramatic results in a subset of patients. tl;dr No positive conclusion.
    - Nicole060 14y ago
      Unfortunately for you, you haven't proven anything about MSG being the root of any disease whatsoever, as both links only proves what it can do to someone who already has some kind of disease (fibromyalgia in this case). This is not so different from the harmful effect of gluten to someone who has coeliac, or sugar to a diabetic, but no sane person is going to demonize gluten or sugar just because a very small subset of the population are harmed by those substances. Or milk. Or peanuts. Almost any type of food source could be thought of as harmful based on your own criteria. I can find the kind of study you link to for so many things that you'd develop a fear of eating itself. The truth remains : there is no STRONG correlation between MSG and the kind of horrors the demonization campaign stirred up by conspiracy theorists pretends it to do to the human body. You type "monosodium glutamate" in google and one of the links on the FIRST page is a link to rense.com, a website maintained by 9/11 deniers and UFO believers, and it's for a good reason if that link is on the first page, because talk about MSG is most popular amongst that group of people. Anything that is not "natural" (for some highly subjective value of) is prone to be hated and part of a fear mongering campaign from the type of people that are obsessed with fear, fear of technology, of progress, of science, of politics [...]
- robertskmiles 14y ago
  Where you make factual claims, cite your sources.
- sp332 14y ago
  And why is it considered faulty? Because dyslexia is annoying. If I want to visually differentiate among pqdb and I can't, I deem my visual system "faulty".
- darkarmani 14y ago
  > how ADD can be caused I'm sorry, but there is no definitive cause to ADD at this point. Secondly, medication has been proven over and over again as the single most effective method to mitigating the symptoms. Medication plus behavior modification is the most effective treatment. There is no cure for ADD so they have to treat the symptoms (bandaids). > We know things like MSG and artificial red food dies cause ADD in a large percentage of the population We only "know" it in the way that we "know" vaccines cause autism.
charlieflowers 14y ago
The grammar in the article is terrible. For a minute i wondered if i were looking at some kind of spammy fake article. But now, i think it more likely it is a poorly written summary of legitamite research.

17 points by llambda 14y ago

"... shown that many difficulties associated with dyslexia can potentially be traced back to a malfunction of the medial geniculate body in the thalamus." I always wonder if things like Dyslexia are more a symptom from something else, like how ADD can be caused in people who have food sensitivities or allergies but don't realize it - or perhaps a terrible childhood where the person / mind / brain learned distraction behaviours for coping, and therefore until those distraction behaviours are explored that ADD person will never learn how to focus. And why is it considered faulty? How can one determine the pros and cons of how a mind will develop due to how the brain works? It really bothers me that much of very narrow scientifically-done research doesn't reach back out into a holistic view. I understand that if you keep the narrow context than their statements remain 'true' - however that isn't beneficial on an individual-by-individual basis when our body and minds are so complex. A quick fix sounds nice, is 'cheap' in cost (if you ignore side-effects and that many times medications are bandaids that tend to fall off or let symptoms [from something underlying] worsen), and is purely driven by profit-motive - at least that's where funding comes from, even if it's in researcher's hearts to trying to find answers to help others. We know things like MSG and artificial red food dies cause ADD in a large percentage of the population, though in North America we still allow it in our food - whereas in much of Europe such things are ban. Anyway, clearly I am for preventative/proactive health and not putting temporary bandaids on things. Research is showing more and more that bandaids (not literally) end up costing society more than dealing with the base issues.

Nicole060 14y ago
"We know things like MSG and artificial red food dies cause ADD in a large percentage of the population, though in North America we still allow it in our food - whereas in much of Europe such things are ban." First, MSG has not been banned in Europe, and you can buy this food additive and use it for your own home cooking, I should know because I sometimes use it instead of salt. Second, you'll have a hard time finding an actual study proving the harmful effect of MSG, and links to websites with no credibility like rense.com doesn't count. It's not a coincidence that most links point to stuff like that on the first page of google when you search for MSG and they are popular among conspiracy nuts/fear mongers. If you listen to the conspiracy theorists, MSG causes diabetes, alzheimer, autism, heavy migraine/headaches, parkinson, seizures, addiction to MSG itself.. stop propagating the bull*.
- saurik 14y ago
  So, I know nothing about MSG, but when I see people say things like "you'll have a hard time finding an actual study proving the harmful effect of X" I tend to go check, as it is do easy to do so: it makes for a good check of academic honesty. Regardless, this claim is clearly wrong: PubMed has tons of papers about random things being associated or impplicated with MSG, including neurological effects. In particular, here are some papers about excitotoxins (MSG in particular) and fibromyalgia. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11408989 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11408989 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22766026 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22766026
  - gdsafsadfsaasdf 14y ago
    >The elimination of MSG and other excitotoxins from the diets of patients with fibromyalgia offers a benign treatment option that has the potential for dramatic results in a subset of patients. tl;dr No positive conclusion.
  - Nicole060 14y ago
    Unfortunately for you, you haven't proven anything about MSG being the root of any disease whatsoever, as both links only proves what it can do to someone who already has some kind of disease (fibromyalgia in this case). This is not so different from the harmful effect of gluten to someone who has coeliac, or sugar to a diabetic, but no sane person is going to demonize gluten or sugar just because a very small subset of the population are harmed by those substances. Or milk. Or peanuts. Almost any type of food source could be thought of as harmful based on your own criteria. I can find the kind of study you link to for so many things that you'd develop a fear of eating itself. The truth remains : there is no STRONG correlation between MSG and the kind of horrors the demonization campaign stirred up by conspiracy theorists pretends it to do to the human body. You type "monosodium glutamate" in google and one of the links on the FIRST page is a link to rense.com, a website maintained by 9/11 deniers and UFO believers, and it's for a good reason if that link is on the first page, because talk about MSG is most popular amongst that group of people. Anything that is not "natural" (for some highly subjective value of) is prone to be hated and part of a fear mongering campaign from the type of people that are obsessed with fear, fear of technology, of progress, of science, of politics [...]
robertskmiles 14y ago
Where you make factual claims, cite your sources.
sp332 14y ago
And why is it considered faulty? Because dyslexia is annoying. If I want to visually differentiate among pqdb and I can't, I deem my visual system "faulty".
darkarmani 14y ago
> how ADD can be caused I'm sorry, but there is no definitive cause to ADD at this point. Secondly, medication has been proven over and over again as the single most effective method to mitigating the symptoms. Medication plus behavior modification is the most effective treatment. There is no cure for ADD so they have to treat the symptoms (bandaids). > We know things like MSG and artificial red food dies cause ADD in a large percentage of the population We only "know" it in the way that we "know" vaccines cause autism.

charlieflowers 14y ago

The grammar in the article is terrible. For a minute i wondered if i were looking at some kind of spammy fake article. But now, i think it more likely it is a poorly written summary of legitamite research.