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posted by chromas on Friday November 22 2019, @11:13AM   Printer-friendly
from the I-must-be-seriously-inflamed dept.

Link between inflammation and mental sluggishness shown in new study

An estimated 12M UK citizens have a chronic medical condition, and many of them report severe mental fatigue that they characterize as ‘sluggishness’ or ‘brain fog’. This condition is often as debilitating as the disease itself.

A team in the University’s Centre for Human Brain Health investigated the link between this mental fog and inflammation – the body’s response to illness. In a study published in Neuroimage[$], they show that inflammation appears to have a particular negative impact on the brain’s readiness to reach and maintain an alert state.

Dr Ali Mazaheri and Professor Jane Raymond of the University’s Centre for Human Brain Health, are the senior authors of the study. Dr Mazaheri says: “Scientists have long suspected a link between inflammation and cognition, but it is very difficult to be clear about the cause and effect. For example, people living with a medical condition or being very overweight might complain of cognitive impairment, but it’s hard to tell if that’s due to the inflammation associated with these conditions or if there are other reasons.”

“Our research has identified a specific critical process within the brain that is clearly affected when inflammation is present.”

The study focussed specifically on an area of the brain which is responsible for visual attention. A group of 20 young male volunteers took part and received a salmonella typhoid vaccine that causes temporary inflammation but has few other side effects. They were tested for cognitive responses to simple images on a computer screen a few hours after the injection so that their ability to control attention could be measured. Brain activity was measured while they performed the attention tests.

On a different day, either before or after, they received an injection with water (a placebo) and did the same attention tests. On each test day they were unaware of which injection they had received. Their inflammation state was measured by analysing blood taken on each day.

The tests used in the study assessed three separate attention processes, each involving distinct parts of the brain. These processes are: “alerting” which involves reaching and maintaining an alert state; “orienting” which involves selecting and prioritising useful sensory information; and “executive control” used to resolving what to pay attention to when available information is conflicting.

The results showed that inflammation specifically affected brain activity related to staying alert, while the other attention processes appeared unaffected by inflammation.

Journal Reference:
Leonie JT. Balter, Jos A. Bosch, Sarah Aldred, Mark T. Drayson, Jet JCS. Veldhuijzen van Zanten, Suzanne Higgs, Jane E. Raymond, Ali Mazaheri. Selective effects of acute low-grade inflammation on human visual attention[$]. NeuroImage, 2019; 202: 116098 DOI: 10.1016/j.neuroimage.2019.116098


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  • (Score: 2) by jmichaelhudsondotnet on Friday November 22 2019, @03:25PM (3 children)

    by jmichaelhudsondotnet (8122) on Friday November 22 2019, @03:25PM (#923406) Journal

    Hurting the brain makes the brain less efficient, wow.

    Put this in the file cabinet with 'brain has hard-set sleep requirements and does not like being interrupted while sleeping. Also, the specific details of your stomach's chemistry are important to your health.'

    Kindof like, 'hurting you hurts you!'

    and, 'being hurt is not as good ad not being hurt!'

    and, 'we could all live 20 years longer if a few minor changes were made to capitalism, health care and work.'

    More and more I feel life on earth is following a plan designed on a different planet from a 'How to suppress and manage populated human planets for the sheer spite of it'

    Also, epstein escaped and thesesystemsarefailing.net

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  • (Score: 3, Interesting) by DannyB on Friday November 22 2019, @04:12PM

    by DannyB (5839) Subscriber Badge on Friday November 22 2019, @04:12PM (#923423) Journal

    'we could all live 20 years longer if a few minor changes were made to capitalism, health care and work.'

    But OMG! . . . socialism!

    More and more I feel life on earth is following a plan designed on a different planet

    Kid with magnifying glass. Maybe this planet is some other planet's "hell". Maybe the architect included design flaws in the plan.

    Or maybe, people are selfish, short sighted and tribal. The worse they are, the higher positions of power we appoint them to.

    --
    People today are educated enough to repeat what they are taught but not to question what they are taught.
  • (Score: 2) by Freeman on Friday November 22 2019, @06:03PM

    by Freeman (732) on Friday November 22 2019, @06:03PM (#923463) Journal

    You were kind of on a roll, still very much on the sensational side, but then you fell off the wagon towards the end there.

    --
    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"
  • (Score: 5, Insightful) by JoeMerchant on Friday November 22 2019, @07:42PM

    by JoeMerchant (3937) on Friday November 22 2019, @07:42PM (#923487)

    Correlations between readily identifiable joint pain and other signs of inflammation and mental slugishness are not an intuitive leap for everyone, particularly the mentally sluggish.

    --
    🌻🌻 [google.com]