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Communication with Locked-In Patients in Question after Misconduct Finding

posted by janrinok on Wednesday October 02 2019, @06:31PM   
from the science,-but-not-as-it-should-be-done dept.

Freeman writes:

Germany's main research-funding organization, DFG, has determined that a high-profile neuroscientist committed scientific misconduct in his DFG-funded work. That work concluded it is possible to interpret yes-or-no answers from the brain waves of fully paralyzed patients with "locked-in syndrome" due to amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS, aka Lou Gehrig's disease).

[...]Birbaumer's team, included incorrect information in three cases, did not completely record patient examinations by video as they reported, and failed to provide full data on patients.

The DFG opened its investigation in 2018 after whistleblower Martin Spüler, at the time a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Tübingen, said that he could not replicate the researchers' findings when he reanalyzed their data. An independent expert commissioned by the DFG as well as two other whistleblowers subsequently said that they too could not replicate the findings.

[...]An independent investigation at the University of Tübingen likewise concluded in June that the researchers committed scientific misconduct. The investigation found evidence of selective data collection, missing and incomplete data, and possible data corruption due to flawed analysis.

In statements to Nature, Birbaumer said he accepted the investigations findings but that he stands by the work, which he say still shows "that it is possible to communicate with patients who are completely paralyzed, through computer-based analysis of blood flow and brain currents."

The DFG noted in its statement that the investigators did not draw any conclusions on whether the researchers' approach is valid. Nevertheless, the DFG and the University of Tübingen both recommended that PLOS Biology retract both papers.

https://arstechnica.com/science/2019/09/communication-with-locked-in-patients-in-question-after-misconduct-finding/

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Original Submission

• Re:Doesn't MRI work? Re:Doesn't MRI work? (Score: 2) by Freeman on Wednesday October 02 2019, @07:04PM (6 children)

  by Freeman (732) on Wednesday October 02 2019, @07:04PM (#901988) Journal

  It's not that they're brain dead. It's that specifically the portions of the brain that control your motor skills is deteriorating at a pretty rapid pace. Which apparently also includes whatever areas control your breathing.

  The average survival from onset to death is two to four years, though this can vary.[5][16] About 10% survive longer than 10 years.[4] Most die from respiratory failure.[3]
  [...]
  Signs and symptoms

  The disorder causes muscle weakness, atrophy, and muscle spasms throughout the body due to the degeneration of the upper motor and lower motor neurons. Individuals affected by the disorder may ultimately lose the ability to initiate and control all voluntary movement,[5] although bladder and bowel function and the extraocular muscles (the muscles responsible for eye movement) are usually spared[33][c] until the final stages of the disease.[35]

  Cognitive or behavioral dysfunction is present in 30–50% of individuals with ALS.[36] Around half of people with ALS will experience mild changes in cognition and behavior, and 10–15% will show signs of frontotemporal dementia.[5] Repeating phrases or gestures, apathy, and loss of inhibition are frequently reported behavioral features of ALS.[37] Language dysfunction, executive dysfunction, and troubles with social cognition and verbal memory are the most commonly reported cognitive symptoms in ALS; a meta-analysis found no relationship between dysfunction and disease severity.[38] However, cognitive and behavioral dysfunctions have been found to correlate with reduced survival in people with ALS and increased caregiver burden; this may be due in part to deficits in social cognition.[38] About half the people who have ALS experience emotional lability, in which they cry or laugh for no reason; it is more common in those with bulbar-onset ALS.[5]

  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amyotrophic_lateral_sclerosis [wikipedia.org]

  --
  Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"

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• Re:Doesn't MRI work? Re:Doesn't MRI work? (Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Wednesday October 02 2019, @08:50PM (5 children)

  by fustakrakich (6150) on Wednesday October 02 2019, @08:50PM (#902027) Journal

  I was thinking that an MRI would indicate the brain's reaction to external stimuli better than an EEG for communicating

  --
  La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..

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  • Re:Doesn't MRI work? Re:Doesn't MRI work? (Score: 2) by Freeman on Wednesday October 02 2019, @09:35PM (4 children)

    by Freeman (732) on Wednesday October 02 2019, @09:35PM (#902043) Journal

    From my layman's understanding, MRIs wouldn't do that as they're essentially, just taking a picture of the body, quite like an X-Ray. Whereas an EEG monitors the electrical impulses in your brain.

    --
    Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"

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    • Re:Doesn't MRI work? Re:Doesn't MRI work? (Score: 2) by Freeman on Wednesday October 02 2019, @09:50PM (3 children)

      by Freeman (732) on Wednesday October 02 2019, @09:50PM (#902054) Journal

      Hmm..., okay, there is an fMRI, which I assume uses the same machine, but is a different test than an MRI.

      What is functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI)?

      ANSWER

      A special kind of MRI called a functional MRI (fMRI) maps brain activity.

      This test looks at blood flow in your brain to see which areas become active when you do certain tasks. An fMRI can detect brain problems, such as the effects of a stroke. It can also be used for brain mapping if you need brain surgery for epilepsy or tumors. Your doctor can use this test to plan your treatment.

      https://www.webmd.com/a-to-z-guides/qa/what-is-functional-magnetic-resonance-imaging-fmri [webmd.com]

      Still, I assume, you'd need all the same preactions as a normal MRI. Also, an MRI machine is huge. https://www.webmd.com/a-to-z-guides/what-is-a-mri#1 [webmd.com]

      Whereas, the equipment for doing an EEG easily fits into a small exam room. I've seen one in person, they are substantially smaller and probably much, much cheaper than an MRI machine.

      I went looking for size comparisons for the actual machinery, but I found this interesting information, instead.

      EEG vs fMRI, fNIRS and PET

      EEG has several strong points as a tool for exploring brain activity. EEGs can detect changes over milliseconds, which is excellent considering an action potential takes approximately 0.5–130 milliseconds to propagate across a single neuron, depending on the type of neuron.[64] Other methods of looking at brain activity, such as PET and fMRI have time resolution between seconds and minutes. EEG measures the brain's electrical activity directly, while other methods record changes in blood flow (e.g., SPECT, fMRI) or metabolic activity (e.g., PET, NIRS), which are indirect markers of brain electrical activity. EEG can be used simultaneously with fMRI so that high-temporal-resolution data can be recorded at the same time as high-spatial-resolution data, however, since the data derived from each occurs over a different time course, the data sets do not necessarily represent exactly the same brain activity. There are technical difficulties associated with combining these two modalities, including the need to remove the MRI gradient artifact present during MRI acquisition and the ballistocardiographic artifact (resulting from the pulsatile motion of blood and tissue) from the EEG. Furthermore, currents can be induced in moving EEG electrode wires due to the magnetic field of the MRI.

      EEG can be used simultaneously with NIRS without major technical difficulties. There is no influence of these modalities on each other and a combined measurement can give useful information about electrical activity as well as local hemodynamics.
      EEG vs MEG

      EEG reflects correlated synaptic activity caused by post-synaptic potentials of cortical neurons. The ionic currents involved in the generation of fast action potentials may not contribute greatly to the averaged field potentials representing the EEG.[47][65] More specifically, the scalp electrical potentials that produce EEG are generally thought to be caused by the extracellular ionic currents caused by dendritic electrical activity, whereas the fields producing magnetoencephalographic signals[25] are associated with intracellular ionic currents.[66]

      EEG can be recorded at the same time as MEG so that data from these complementary high-time-resolution techniques can be combined.

      Studies on numerical modeling of EEG and MEG have also been done.[67]

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electroencephalography [wikipedia.org]

      --
      Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"

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      • Re:Doesn't MRI work? (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 03 2019, @05:56AM

        by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 03 2019, @05:56AM (#902174)

        So, in other words, we have no idea how a brain works, but we can monitor blood flow, so that we know that when the brain is having a period, we know to stay away from it.

        I love neuro-physiology, it is almost like economics! Brains devoid of thought.

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      • Re:Doesn't MRI work? (Score: 3, Interesting) by nishi.b on Thursday October 03 2019, @04:12PM

        by nishi.b (4243) on Thursday October 03 2019, @04:12PM (#902335)

        I performed an fMRI study and also an EEG experiment, and the two accused researchers happen to have worked in the same building as myself, even if I don't know them.
        From what I can read here, they are accused of having selected only the parts of the data that confirmed their hypothesis, not keeping all the records they were supposed to and so on. So basically fraud.
        I don't know whether that's true or not, but they would not be the first to do things like that, when having results like this might give them access to celebrity, more funding and a better career. I don't really get why this is of general interest outside the domain as it is only one study.
        There are numerous studies on locked-in patients trying to show communication using EEG, MEG or fMRI (e.g. Steven Laureys in Belgium) which are done correctly.

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      • Re:Doesn't MRI work? (Score: 2, Interesting) by fustakrakich on Friday October 04 2019, @01:51AM

        by fustakrakich (6150) on Friday October 04 2019, @01:51AM (#902515) Journal

        fMRI

        Yeah, that's it [soylentnews.org]. Didn't know about different kinds.

        Very dangerous [livescience.com]

        --
        La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..

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