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I found an article published on Science Daily which reports 'Fuzzy thinking' in depression, bipolar disorder: New research finds effect is real. Here's an excerpt:
People with depression or bipolar disorder often feel their thinking ability has gotten "fuzzy," or less sharp than before their symptoms began. Now, researchers have shown in a very large study that effect is indeed real -- and rooted in brain activity differences that show up on advanced brain scans.
What's more, the results add to the mounting evidence that these conditions both fall on a spectrum of mood disorders, rather than being completely unrelated. That could transform the way doctors and patients think about, diagnose and treat them.
In a new paper in the journal BRAIN, researchers from the University of Michigan Medical School and Depression Center and their colleagues report the results of tests they gave to 612 women -- more than two-thirds of whom had experienced either major depression or bipolar disorder. The researchers also present data from detailed brain scans of 52 of the women, who took tests while brain scans were conducted.
[...] On the brain scans, the researchers found that the women with depression or bipolar disorder had different levels of activity than healthy women in a particular area of the brain called the right posterior parietal cortex. In those with depression, the activity in this area was higher than in healthy individuals, while in those with bipolar disorder it was lower. The area where the differences were seen helps control "executive function" -- activities such as working memory, problem solving and reasoning.
An abstract is available but the full report is behind a paywall.
(Score: 4, Informative) by melikamp on Tuesday May 05 2015, @04:41PM
That's great, because it doesn't look like any research was done here. Any statistical study that does not release the data for public review is probably a scam. In this specific case, even the article is inaccessible, so it looks like a scam designed to enrich the "publisher", as well as to pad some CVs.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Adamsjas on Tuesday May 05 2015, @07:52PM
Anyone with qualifications to review the study already has access to it, provided by their organization or a personal membership, or willingness to pay $39.
That you don't have access, suggests to me you aren't in this field, don't have the qualifications to review it, and would be mostly chirping from the sidelines. That you judge it a scam, sight unseen, based on some petulant tantrum criteria, suggests the authors made a wise choice in keeping it behind a paywall. (To the extend they had a choice in the matter, which often researchers don't.)
(Score: 4, Insightful) by melikamp on Tuesday May 05 2015, @10:48PM
You are seriously going to defend paywalling science and hiding data?
Willingness counts for nothing when one has no practical ability to pay. Not to exclude any other qualified researchers, but just as an example, most people from not-so-first-world countries, researchers or not, simply cannot access this article.
I am a professional mathematician, and my background in statistics is perfectly sufficient for reading anything psychologists come up with. When you infer my lack of qualifications from my lack of access, you only show how little you think before you write.
Far from throwing a tantrum, I am asking for a very basic, very simple things: both the sample data and the work done on it (the article itself) must be accessible for public review. This is how science is done on the net, and yeah, it's a scam without the sample data, because there is no scientific reason to hide it from us, and we must have it to be able to reproduce their results.
And talking about the pay-wall, even if I had access and could see TFA, how could I trust this study? I think I have a right to display contempt for these authors' motivations: by pay-walling, not only they impeded science, but they clearly had nothing to gain except for boosting their CVs. Moreover, they faked the peer review, since we have zero evidence that this article was reviewed by anyone. The only effective way to facilitate review is by making all the materials available to the public, and then keeping the logs of who said what, so that we know the names of researchers who reviewed TFA, so that we know what those researches have said, all that so that we, non-specialists, can make our own judgements with regard to how good this article is. The so-called "peer-review" practiced by the traditional publishers has none of those features, and is an integral part of the citation racket they are running.
(Score: 3, Touché) by DeathMonkey on Tuesday May 05 2015, @08:18PM
You know, it's this kind of in-depth scientific analysis that keeps me coming back to this site!
First post: personal anecdote from a self-confessed crazy person.
Second Post: It's fake because of a paywall.
Clearly, no more science is necessary w/r/t the human brain. Soylent has it sussed out!
(I kid because I love)
(Score: 3, Interesting) by melikamp on Wednesday May 06 2015, @12:25AM
As some of you know, I enjoy this site thoroughly. Which is why it drives me babanas every time there's a news item about a scientific study behind a paywall. Half the time I am incensed because the study looks interesting, and I would actually like to read the study and discuss it, but I cannot. In all fairness, I could probably rig up access for myself using my various affiliations, past and present, but THIS IS BULLSHIT. Most people cannot just "rig it up", and let's just say I am feeling some empathy here (hence the yelling). I think SN would be cooler by boycotting non-free scientific publishers. It should not be a formal boycott, I think, but just a group-think feeling I am trying to create right now with this post. I would never submit a news item about a non-free article, and I would be quite happy if others did the same. All I am saying :)