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posted by CoolHand on Tuesday May 05 2015, @02:58PM   Printer-friendly
from the our-thinking-is-always-fuzzy dept.

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.

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  • (Score: 4, Interesting) by mendax on Tuesday May 05 2015, @04:13PM

    by mendax (2840) on Tuesday May 05 2015, @04:13PM (#179136)

    No one needed to do any research to let me know about this feature.

    As a continual survivor of chronic depression and anxiety I can say from first-hand experience it has made my thinking very, very funny. When I get out of it I look back upon the decisions I made during a period of the blues, I am amazed at the decisions I made and their lack of quality. Depression also makes doing work difficult because it sucks up mental energy and requires even more mental energy to overcome the negative thoughts and feelings.

    --
    It's really quite a simple choice: Life, Death, or Los Angeles.
    • (Score: 4, Informative) by melikamp on Tuesday May 05 2015, @04:41PM

      by melikamp (1886) on Tuesday May 05 2015, @04:41PM (#179148) Journal

      No one needed to do any research to let me know about this feature.

      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

        by Adamsjas (4507) on Tuesday May 05 2015, @07:52PM (#179228)

        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

          by melikamp (1886) on Tuesday May 05 2015, @10:48PM (#179284) Journal

          You are seriously going to defend paywalling science and hiding data?

          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.

          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.

          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.

          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.

          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.

          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

        by DeathMonkey (1380) on Tuesday May 05 2015, @08:18PM (#179246) Journal

        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

          by melikamp (1886) on Wednesday May 06 2015, @12:25AM (#179307) Journal

          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.

          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 :)

    • (Score: 2) by Kilo110 on Tuesday May 05 2015, @06:01PM

      by Kilo110 (2853) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday May 05 2015, @06:01PM (#179175)

      How were you able to get yourself out of it?

      • (Score: 4, Interesting) by mendax on Tuesday May 05 2015, @06:39PM

        by mendax (2840) on Tuesday May 05 2015, @06:39PM (#179194)

        Well, I'm coming to understand the value of tranquilizers, something which I've started taking recently to help get me out of bouts of anxiety. But there are some other tricks I can use. Using positive thinking, writing down or saying to myself affirmations also help. But when my mood swings downward there is not much I can do to stop it. All I can do is ride it out, knowing with absolutely certainty that I will be out of the bad mood in a week or so.

        --
        It's really quite a simple choice: Life, Death, or Los Angeles.
    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 05 2015, @06:29PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 05 2015, @06:29PM (#179190)

      Mine does the opposite. My thinking gets clearer, faster, and disturbingly more focused. When I am depressed I have no problem at all staring at a blank wall contemplating a problem nonstop for 15-20 hours. So yeah, this research has should be done and has barely scratched the surface.

      My symptoms are part of the reason why it is chronic for me. It makes my life miserable and not at all worth living, but I am far better at solving problems for others. It is hard to give up the ability to make the lives of many other people better just for my own benefit.

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 05 2015, @07:13PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 05 2015, @07:13PM (#179211)

        Likewise for me. I also find that my habits also make turns for the better when I'm going through a period of depression. I stop biting my nails, start working out, try out new hobbies, etc. From outside I imagine it looks like I am getting my life together, as opposed to hanging on by a thread. I'm in the midst of a rough bout right now, so this topic is of particular interest to me at the moment.

        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 05 2015, @08:37PM

          by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 05 2015, @08:37PM (#179258)

          Yeah I don't know why. Random shot in the dark: some research on bloodflow in the brain indicates that people with a disposition to depression have higher blood concentrations in the prefrontal cortex. It is taken as an explanation as to why when people are put under cognitive stress, i.e. college exams, they show short term symptoms of depression. Critical thought and higher attention spans are the result. The parts of the brain that deals with emotional processing and such might get less blood flow. That has not been tested yet as far as I know.

      • (Score: 3, Informative) by PartTimeZombie on Wednesday May 06 2015, @03:47AM

        by PartTimeZombie (4827) on Wednesday May 06 2015, @03:47AM (#179376)

        I am close to a person with Bi-polar II and she has gone from being a quite clever person, to having very fuzzy thinking indeed, over about 10 years.
        When she's manic she's the smartest person in the room and she gets very short with the rest of the world who just don't understand and can't keep up. It doesn't matter what stupid thing she does, everyone else needs to try and keep up.
        When she's depressed however, she understands the poor decisions she's made, and this makes her even more depressed.
        It's a very difficult disease to deal with.

  • (Score: 2) by GungnirSniper on Tuesday May 05 2015, @04:47PM

    by GungnirSniper (1671) on Tuesday May 05 2015, @04:47PM (#179151) Journal

    Gabapentin Enhances Neurogenesis in E14 Rat Embryonic Neocortex Stem Cells. [nih.gov] So I hope it does the same for me, beyond the mood stabilizing effect.

  • (Score: 5, Interesting) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Tuesday May 05 2015, @04:53PM

    I have Bipolar-Type Schizoaffective Disorder [warplife.com]. It is somewhat like being schizophrenic and manic depressive at the same time. Much of the time I do just fine, other times I am completely out to lunch.

    First term of junior year Quantum Mechanics at UC Santa Cruz, I got the second highest grade in the class. The following term I got the lowest. I wasn't even going to show up to the final exam as I wanted to sleep through it, but my hallmates demanded that I get out of bed. I refused to go unless I could bring some beer with me to drink during the test. I had not the first clue.

    I'd like to go back to graduate school someday but my erratic grades are going to be a challenge to explain.

    --
    Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
    • (Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 05 2015, @06:35PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 05 2015, @06:35PM (#179193)

      I'd like to go back to graduate school someday but my erratic grades are going to be a challenge to explain.

      No it wont. Mr. Michael David Crawford, the only difficulty is overcoming your societal expectations that they wont or can't believe a man actually does have an internal life filled with the same struggles that women go through. Women regularly get a free pass for these challenges, I am sure you have seen it. Men can to but they have to communicate openly. You already explained it to us in under three lines. Do the same again to your adviser.

    • (Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 05 2015, @08:06PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 05 2015, @08:06PM (#179236)

      I've been able to go back to school after being diagnosed with bipolar type I. I told the re-admission counselor "I have bipolar disorder, and that caused me to drop fail out." That was all I needed to say. Did I then ramble on for another twenty minutes? Yes. Did I then fail out again (and again and again and again)? Yes. But all of that is besides the point. Getting into college isn't that hard if you had good grades at some point in time that you can point to. Just don't follow my path and pretend you can do it without the help of anti-psychotics.

    • (Score: 1) by Empyrean on Wednesday May 06 2015, @06:55PM

      by Empyrean (5241) on Wednesday May 06 2015, @06:55PM (#179619)

      I also have bipolar-type schizoaffective disorder, and I can definitely relate to your experiences (especially the fuzzy thinking). While my depressive episodes have been dangerous (due to the risk of suicide), my manic/delusional episodes have pretty much destroyed my career. Most of the jobs within my area of expertise (computer vision) require a security clearance, which I can't obtain due to some unfortunate encounters with the police. Many other jobs I might be qualified for reside in the US, and I can't travel there for the same reasons. Furthermore, nobody wants to hire someone who has been in and out of work for several years because of "health-related" reasons.