re:[tips] Some movement disorders may be rooted in the brain............................ Well, duh!
OK, Mike has convinced me that he's correct. There are disorders which have nothing to do with the nervous system and are, in fact, the product of an incorporeal mind. except, perhaps for those caused by evil spirits. It seems eminently reasonable to me that if I can't find any biological basis for a disorder, it can't be because I have yet to find that basis.. Rather, it must be the caused by evil spirits. Edward I. Pollak, Ph.D. Professor Emeritus of Psychology West Chester University of Pennsylvania http://home.comcast.net/~epollak/ Husband, father, grandfather, bluegrass fiddler, banjoist biopsychologist... in approximate order of importance --- You are currently subscribed to tips as: arch...@jab.org. To unsubscribe click here: http://fsulist.frostburg.edu/u?id=13090.68da6e6e5325aa33287ff385b70df5d5n=Tl=tipso=24008 or send a blank email to leave-24008-13090.68da6e6e5325aa33287ff385b70df...@fsulist.frostburg.edu
re:[tips] Some movement disorders may be rooted in the brain............................ Well, duh!
On Thu, 28 Feb 2013 08:39:52 -0800, Edward Pollak wrote: OK, Mike has convinced me that he's correct. There are disorders which have nothing to do with the nervous system and are, in fact, the product of an incorporeal mind. except, perhaps for those caused by evil spirits. Okay, folks, critical thinking time. Ed's statement above represents what kind(s) of fallacy? Is it: a) red herring b) begging the question c) equivocation d) straw man e) all of the above One can use the following website to evaluate the alternatives: http://writingcenter.unc.edu/handouts/fallacies/ It seems eminently reasonable to me that if I can't find any biological basis for a disorder, it can't be because I have yet to find that basis.. Rather, it must be the caused by evil spirits. Which reminds me, Catholics and other religious groups still consider exorcism a useful technique in situations that a more secular person would view as being amenable to psychotherapy. For example, see: http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/evil-deeds/201102/exorcism-psychotherapy-clinical-psychologist-examines-so-called-demonic-posse See also the Wikipedia entry: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exorcism And just for Catholics who are undergoing a troubling time without a leader and need a distraction: http://www.uscatholic.org/church/2011/05/theyre-baaack-whats-behind-return-exorcist Now, while Ed may have decided to believe in evil spirits or supernatural forces or is stuck in an out-dated conception of mind-stuff being soul-stuff (he is retired; perhaps he was buds with Rene Descartes), I have to admit: (1) I never argued for supernatural forces or extranatural forces as the basis of anything. If Ed chooses to interpret what say in such terms, I just have to say that I hear that they have good medications for such conditions these days. (2) I don't know if Ed is intentionally mis-stating what I have said or he's just having fun or he's having a hard time getting his thinking out of the 19th century. But I would like him to stop misrepresenting what I am saying. Please quote the specific statements (e.g., physicians who can't find a biological basis for a physical symptoms ascribe such symptoms to psychological processes) instead of paraphrase (e.g., Mike says people with certain symptoms are suffering from demonic possession). Okay? -Mike Palij New York University m...@nyu.edu --- You are currently subscribed to tips as: arch...@jab.org. To unsubscribe click here: http://fsulist.frostburg.edu/u?id=13090.68da6e6e5325aa33287ff385b70df5d5n=Tl=tipso=24010 or send a blank email to leave-24010-13090.68da6e6e5325aa33287ff385b70df...@fsulist.frostburg.edu
re:[tips] Some movement disorders may be rooted in the brain............................ Well, duh!
Mike Palij wriote, I'm having a hard time understanding Ed's post. Perhaps he is saying Hey, the movement/muscle disorder either it has a neurological basis in the brain or it is psychological based (i.e., psychogenic) and that's too is in brain! It's all in the brain! Which is a pretty trivial point and misses, well, the point. Perhaps Ed doesn't know what psychogenic illnesses are (e.g., as described here: http://www.ninds.nih.gov/disorders/psychogenic_movement/psychogenic_movement.htm ) that is, disorders that manifest themselves in some physical manner, such a abnormal movement or blindness or pain or fatigue and so on without any obvious organic or physical basis. If there is no organic basis, then either a psychological explanation or malingering might be considered. These types of functional disorders are often stigmatized by both the medical community (because there is no objective basis for the disorder) and the public (who think that the person is just faking it for some sort of secondary gain). The point of the research being reported is that movement disorders that have a genetic (i.e., known organic) basis and psychogenic basis have brain activity that is different from normal people just faking. If this is trivial, I'd like to know why. 1) I don't think it's at all trivial to acjknowledge that all behavior is rooted in brain activity. Witness the number of unapologetic dualists publishing at a prolific rate and by the use of terms like psychogenic. 2) I had thought that the entire notion of functional vs. organic illness was long defunct. Defining an illness as functional (i.e., not organic) simply because you don't know the biological basis is, IMO, patently absurd. When I was an undergraduate, schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, depression, etc., etc., were all considered functional disorders. Only things like Korsakoff's syndrome or general paresis were trotted out as examples of disorders with an organic basis. The organic causes of functional or psychogenic disorders may be less obvious but they are there. (And just for the record, I was making fun of the headline in the popular press and not of the research in question.) Ed Edward I. Pollak, Ph.D. Professor Emeritus of Psychology West Chester University of Pennsylvania http://home.comcast.net/~epollak/ Husband, father, grandfather, bluegrass fiddler, banjoist biopsychologist... in approximate order of importance --- You are currently subscribed to tips as: arch...@jab.org. To unsubscribe click here: http://fsulist.frostburg.edu/u?id=13090.68da6e6e5325aa33287ff385b70df5d5n=Tl=tipso=23989 or send a blank email to leave-23989-13090.68da6e6e5325aa33287ff385b70df...@fsulist.frostburg.edu
re:[tips] Some movement disorders may be rooted in the brain............................ Well, duh!
On Wed, 27 Feb 2013 05:25:15 -0800, Edward Pollak wrote: [snip] 1) I don't think it's at all trivial to acjknowledge that all behavior is rooted in brain activity. Yeah, except for the spinal reflexes and other monosynaptic reflexes that don't involve the brain in the behavioral response like in the patellar reflex. See: http://michaeldmann.net/mann15.html Witness the number of unapologetic dualists publishing at a prolific rate and by the use of terms like psychogenic. I don't even know what you're trying to say here except that you disagree with some how some researchers use language. 2) I had thought that the entire notion of functional vs. organic illness was long defunct. If you have a copy of DSM-IV handy, look at the entry for somatoform disorders. There is currently much debate about how such a group of disorders should be included in DSM-V. Remember, if a medical condition has a well understood biological basis and a person presents with the condition but doesn't have the biological basis, what do you attribute their symptoms to? The person's condition is functionally similar to that of a person with an identifiable biological basis but apparently is based on some other basis, historically, on psychological processes -- processes that could lead to the simulation of the condition. See, for example: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17278912 and http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3044887/ NOTE: if one can explain symptoms through the use of psychological processes, such as attention focusing, symptom catastrophizing, and so on, then it seems most reasonable to assume that some form of psychological therapy would be appropriate instead of medical treatment. The article that Ed originally linked to was attempting to show that there was a neurological anomaly in processing associated with the movement disorder. Many researchers are now trying to demonstrate this through neuroimaging or other brain activity measures (e.g., EEG) with functional disorders. Consider the case of hysterical blindness, that is, a person claims total or partial blindness but has no detectable problem with the eyes, the areas of the brain associated with visual processing and so on. Here is one case study that was published in 2011: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21368085 NOTE: measures of brain activity before and after SUCCESSFUL treatment with psychodynamic therapy of the condition suggest that there are some subtle neural processing differences. For the complete article, see: http://cercor.oxfordjournals.org/content/21/10/2394.long The real problem here, as I see it, is that functional disorders are treated differently from organic disorders by INSURANCE COMPANIES because there is no parity between payment for psychological treatment and medical treatment. Once parity is achieved, purely scientific issues can be focused on. (And just for the record, I was making fun of the headline in the popular press and not of the research in question.) Methinks that you should have said this in your original post. -Mike Palij New York University m...@nyu.edu --- You are currently subscribed to tips as: arch...@jab.org. To unsubscribe click here: http://fsulist.frostburg.edu/u?id=13090.68da6e6e5325aa33287ff385b70df5d5n=Tl=tipso=23991 or send a blank email to leave-23991-13090.68da6e6e5325aa33287ff385b70df...@fsulist.frostburg.edu
Re: [tips] Some movement disorders may be rooted in the brain............................ Well, duh!
LOL I see your point Ed. But, to give the authors their due, I think they really meant to say it's not just in their mind. Joan jwarm...@oakton.edu WE HAVE A WINNER for the biggest Well, Duh of the century Ed Some movement disorders may be rooted in the brainhttp://r.smartbrief.com/resp/elqWCjregRCibXtGCidndyCicNdIMO?format=standard People who suffer from little-known movement and muscle disorders commonly referred to as psychogenic diseases showed abnormal brain patterns in a recent study. The cause of these diseases is still unknown, as it has been difficult to detect such differences in brain activity, but the study led by neuroscientist James Rowe of the University of Cambridge used PET scans to find the abnormal brain activity. http://www.livescience.com/27370-mysterious-muscle-disorder-brain-roots.html leave-23972-49240.d374d0c18780e492c3d2e63f91752...@fsulist.frostburg.edu --- You are currently subscribed to tips as: arch...@jab.org. To unsubscribe click here: http://fsulist.frostburg.edu/u?id=13090.68da6e6e5325aa33287ff385b70df5d5n=Tl=tipso=23977 or send a blank email to leave-23977-13090.68da6e6e5325aa33287ff385b70df...@fsulist.frostburg.edu
re: [tips] Some movement disorders may be rooted in the brain............................ Well, duh!
On Tue, 26 Feb 2013 08:25:14 -0800, Edward Pollak wrote: WE HAVE A WINNER for the biggest Well, Duh of the century A few points: (1) I'm responding to Ed's post on the mail-archive but the post to which he is responding (see below) is not there. I don't know who the original poster is or if there are other parts of the post that have been snipped. (2) I'm having a hard time understanding Ed's post. Perhaps he is saying Hey, the movement/muscle disorder either it has a neurological basis in the brain or it is psychological based (i.e., psychogenic) and that's too is in brain! It's all in the brain! Which is a pretty trivial point and misses, well, the point. Perhaps Ed doesn't know what psychogenic illnesses are (e.g., as described here: http://www.ninds.nih.gov/disorders/psychogenic_movement/psychogenic_movement.htm ) that is, disorders that manifest themselves in some physical manner, such a abnormal movement or blindness or pain or fatigue and so on without any obvious organic or physical basis. If there is no organic basis, then either a psychological explanation or malingering might be considered. These types of functional disorders are often stigmatized by both the medical community (because there is no objective basis for the disorder) and the public (who think that the person is just faking it for some sort of secondary gain). The point of the research being reported is that movement disorders that have a genetic (i.e., known organic) basis and psychogenic basis have brain activity that is different from normal people just faking. If this is trivial, I'd like to know why. (3) In the movie Memento one can say that Jonathan Nolan is using the device of an unreliable narrator as a guide to the story and one of the purpose's of the backwards storytelling is to reveal that Leonard (Guy Pearce) cannot be relied upon to tell the truth -- see for example: http://www.christophernolan.net/memento_mem.php One of the key points in the film is that Leonard's amnesia is real, based on an injury he suffered in an attack at home that may have killed his wife. In contrast, Sammy Jankis presumably has a fake psychogenic amnesia that only seemed to be real like Leonard's. However, by the film's end, it is unclear whether Leonard's amnesia is real (i..e., organic) or fake (i.e., psychological, possibly a manifestation of a personality disorder). If a viewer felt sympathy, was it because one thought Leonard's amnesia was organic and real? Is a viewer justified in feeling betrayed (i.e., lied to) by Leonard's revelation that he may have only a psychogenic amnesia and he appears to be suffering from a personality disorder in which he is lying to himself and others? Well, what difference does it make? It's all in his head, right? Or should one distinguish between an organic amnesia from a psychogenic amnesia? For fun and giggles, see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychogenic_amnesia For those unfamiliar with Memento or need a refresher, see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memento_%28film%29 -Mike Palij New York University m...@nyu.edu - Original Message - Some movement disorders may be rooted in the brain. People who suffer from little-known movement and muscle disorders commonly referred to as psychogenic diseases showed abnormal brain patterns in a recent study. The cause of these diseases is still unknown, as it has been difficult to detect such differences in brain activity, but the study led by neuroscientist James Rowe of the University of Cambridge used PET scans to find the abnormal brain activity. http://www.livescience.com/27370-mysterious-muscle-disorder-brain-roots.html --- You are currently subscribed to tips as: arch...@jab.org. To unsubscribe click here: http://fsulist.frostburg.edu/u?id=13090.68da6e6e5325aa33287ff385b70df5d5n=Tl=tipso=23979 or send a blank email to leave-23979-13090.68da6e6e5325aa33287ff385b70df...@fsulist.frostburg.edu
