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=13090.68da6e6e5325aa33287ff385b70df5d5&n=T&l=tips&o=23991
or send a blank email to
leave-23991-13090.68da6e6e5325aa33287ff385b70df...@fsulist.frostburg.edu
