neuro_imager

This is extremely simplistic logic. (I'm a physician).

Blood tests vary from very simple to extremely complex, extremely reliable to extremely variable and requiring no further action (as in your case) to requiring multiple possible further decisions.

Understanding the results of multiple medical blood tests requires some knowledge of multiple subjects including biochemistry, chemical pathology, microbiology and immunology.

There's also the question of what to do next - do you repeat the test, get additional blood tests, get other tests (such as radiology or biopsies) and most critically do you actually have a diagnosis and do you need treatment? (If so, what?)

Then there's the issue of false positives and false negatives which most people get wrong (especially if you're in a low prevalence population).

So yeah, I like to think we still add value.

She did you a favour. Doctors are notoriously hard to live with.

(Doctor here. Married to probably the only female doctor who is not hard to live with ;))

Its incredible how SJWs have done their best to paint anyone who points out the obvious problems associated with mass migration (particularly people from an intolerant, sexist culture) as the problem.

When political correctness appears, logic and reason disappears out the window.

I know I'm at risk of sounding tremendously disparaging but, how critical is it to actually go to college to get a liberal arts education? Can most of these aspects of a "more well-rounded education" not come from reading, travelling and extra-curricular activities (like music lessons and trips to the theatre)?

I know I'm at risk of sounding tremendously disparaging but, how critical is it to actually go to college to get a liberal arts education?

Can most of these aspects of a "more well-rounded education" not come from reading, travelling and extra-curricular activities (like music lessons and trips to the theatre)?

This is the funniest thing about NZ - the country basically shuts down between christmas and mid-January.

Also, some other pointers: - Meds take a long time to work. Don't give up on a drug until you've tried it for at least several weeks. - Same for therapy, don't leave a therapist because you have one bad session or they say something that irks you.

Some other things that helped me: - Minimise negative influences in your life (this includes family members). End toxic relationships. Only be with people that lift you up. - Find fulfilling work. Even if it means taking a pay cut. Doing work you don't enjoy with people you don't like will slowly eat away at your soul. - Stop drinking coffee and minimise caffeine intake. - Get plenty of sleep. Sleep deprivation only makes things worse. - Minimise alcohol intake and avoid recreational drug intake. - Avoid Benzodiazepines - like alcohol they may help in the short term but will hit you hard on the rebound in the long term.

I really wouldn't read too much into MR spectroscopy studies.

MRS is an extremely blunt instrument and only serves to line peoples CVs with scientific sounding publications.

I struggled with anxiety for several years (only realising in retrospect that it was anxiety that was the principle source of my ills.)

I benefitted from an excellent, no BS therapist as well as finding the right medication. It took me several tries to find a medication that made a noticeable difference (the first three never helped and actually in some ways made the situation worse. It also took several tries to find a therapist with an approach that worked for me.

Don't give up. Find the right therapist and get help in finding the right medication (this could take a whilst and you may go through several dead ends before finding a solution but keep at it - its worth it.)

Good luck and all the best. Peace to you over Christmas.

As a frequent international flyer my thoughts are "Jesus, I hope not."

I'm sorry but I disagree with most of your comment (with the exception that we concur that the muslim population needs to take responsibility for their own communities - through their religious leaders being more vocal about "fanatic" elements).

You seam to have a very rosy picture of the Ottoman empire.Without going into too much detail, most historians would agree that it was an aggressive expansionist empire with intolerance to non-islamic sects.

"The terrorists you see today would become terrorists in the name of Christ just as well." - This is patently absurd, at least in this century, and a horrendously apologist argument.

I would recommend reading several key articles illustrating the Saudi Wahabi link to ISIS and how its clear that this is an intrinsically Islamist problem: eg.

http://www.newstatesman.com/world-affairs/2014/11/wahhabism-...

Also, I'd advise reading Sam Harris's "Sleepwalking Toward Armageddon"

http://www.samharris.org/blog/item/sleepwalking-toward-armag...

As someone with very little knowledge of encryption etc. please advise - how safe is dropbox? I would have guessed it would be a relatively frequent target for blackhats.

Unfortunately, the reality of the world is that many people do not adhere to this. Thus the need for strong leadership to bring those who will not co-operate kicking and screaming to the discussion table (or to eradicate them if no such discussion is possible).

My first thought about Paris is not to pray for it. It is to bring harm to those who brought the attack on the Parisians.

"People sleep peaceably in their beds at night only because rough men stand ready to do violence on their behalf." George Orwell

There's no question that the ideology of islam - or at least the ideology of several of its sects is a critical element in these attacks. Claiming otherwise is leftist PC nonsense.

Sure there are many good muslims, most of whom you will find adhere to a secular ideology and western value system despite labelling themselves "muslim".

Singapore is a success only if you appreciate 24/7 unrelenting surveillance not to mention brutal oppression of anything even vaguely against the status quo.

This must be your first time reading Taleb.

I would say that a ban on all advertising is not possible to implement in reality.

Its probably not the best option either, given some utility of advertising, such as general awareness of products and services, as other posters have stated.

I'd be eager to see much more limitation/regulation on advertising. In many countries (other than the US) there is tremendous regulation around medical devices, services and products - I would welcome the same sorts of regulation being applied to all products and services.

Thank you for sharing.

I'm very skeptical from everything I've read about this organisation. I can't see much evidence that this isn't just a lucrative scam preying on people during vulnerable times in their lives. I'd be interested to hear evidence to the contrary.

So far all the "positive benefits" sound as if they could be accounted for by selective attention as well as a self-selected group of very motivated people that attend these conferences (much like most self help).

Its principally a corruption issue.

Western governments and corporations reinforce crony, incompetent governments in developing countries so that their resources can be exploited.

These crony governments then steal (literally) from the population who need it. Until the poor governance issues are resolved, a lot of foreign aid is wasted.

Isn't this article exposing him to significant danger?

I'm sorry to hear about your father and I empathise deeply with what you and your family must have gone through.

Despite the solemn nature of your post, I feel the need to correct a few points: (I am a doctor - a radiologist)

- Palpating the abdomen is not a very reliable way of assessing an individual's liver. Most liver lesions are not palpable and are normally diagnosed (following blood tests) with ultrasound, CT or MRI scans.

- There are several types of what you refer to as "liver cancer". the most common, as in Oliver Sacks'case is metastatic liver disease (ie. the cancer starts somewhere else and spreads to the liver, rather than being from the liver itself - that is a true liver cancer (hepatocellular carcinoma).

- There are several treatments for both primary liver cancer (hepatocellualr carcinoma) and metastatic liver disease. Whether these treatments can result in a "cure" or a prolongation of the patients life, or mearly an improvement in their quality of life depends on the overall progression of the disease.

- Some possible therapies include surgery, chemotherapy, radiotherapy(of various kinds), ablative therapies(cryoablation, radiofrequency ablation, focused ultrasound), embolisation(bland, chemo-embolisation etc.) as well as systemic treatments and pain therapies.

- I'm sorry that your dad went through what he did. He may not have gotten the best possible care (I can't say, I don't know the details).

- There are certainly problems with the healthcare system overall but its not accurate to say that pain relief isn't something physicians and caregivers don't think about or have potential options for.

I would strongly question the idea that he has "no structural abnormality".

It would be very interesting to see exactly what type of imaging they performed on him. Bear in mind, an abnormality in the hippocampus or other memory related structures could be sub-mm in size and result in a significant impairment.

If, for example, he did not have an MRI with diffusion weighted imaging with a sufficiently high B value (gradient value) they may be missing/have missed a very small stroke (this test is also time sensitive -only positive within the first few days of insult).

If they did not perform susceptibility weighted imaging, they may have missed a tiny micro-haemorrhage. Both of these scenarios can result in memory loss if critical structures are involved.

There are also several technical issues that may have resulted in a sub-optimal scan, precluding finding a tiny abnormality. There's also the question of whether the person reading the scan got it right or whether the strength of the magnet/technical parameters of the study were sufficient to resolve a tiny abnormality.

Either of these scenarios could have been a consequence of reduced blood flow (hypoperfusion), a small clot (embolus) or a tiny blood vessel injury (dissection) that could have occurred during the procedure - possibly related to the anaesthetic but not definitively so.

I suspect there is a definitive abnormality that the clinicians that saw him were unable to pick up. This seams a lot more likely than the idea that we need to revise our entire conceptualisation of memory formation to suit a psychological theory.

That looks really impressive. How far away are these sites from being live?

The effects, if present, are likely to be nuanced.

It seams likely that these sorts of effects are likely to arise from certain bacteria, and their interaction with other bacteria (as well as presumably a multitude of other factors, such as the integrity of your intestinal mucosa).

Antibiotics (particularly broad spectrum antibiotics) kill entire classes of bacteria (eg. gram positive bacteria - which would include several hundred or thousands of bacteria) and are not good at targeting a specific bacterium.

One consequence of this is the overgrowth of the remaining bacteria (eg. C. difficile which causes pseudomembranous colitis).

So the "massive natural experiment" you describe is not a very reliable one. It may be that when you take a certain antibiotic you kill off all the positive psychobiotic bacteria and the compounds they produce (or maybe just some of them) along with detrimental bacteria (or just one or the other).

You also have to factor in that there are innumerable classes and types of antibiotic, innumerable bacteria (each with their own resistance profile) and variable effects on individuals.

Absolutely, EEG is great in the neurology clinic. Its just not great as a "self-development" tool or a "brain-mind" interface the way a lot of marketeers would like to claim.

I'm not so sure.

Schools, by design, are not interested in encouraging critical thinking or creating independent and free individuals. Rather, the focus is on organising children and creating reliable, predictable, obedient citizens. As award-winning former teacher John Gatto puts it, “school was looked upon from the first part of the 20th Century as a branch of industry and a tool of governance.”

The financial elite and their philanthropic organisations together with lobby groups and governments have been able to mold society by funding and pushing compulsory state schooling for the masses.

Also, schools have become bastions of various ideologues (feminists, multiculturalists, moral relativists etc.), most of whom are not particularly clear thinkers. These people spend most of their time divided between pushing their own brand of BS and fighting for tenure with little concern for true educational reform.

Like a lot of things it depends on incentives. Individuals should be incentivised to obtain the best outcomes not to maintain the status quo.

One way to alleviate this type of thing is to pay doctors a flat rate salary, adjusted according to patient outcome (ie. significant improvement in outcomes through a novel innovation - you get a percentage raise). Paying per procedure is part of the intrinsic problem.

The system also needs to change, like many systems. Innovation and capability needs to be valued over seniority. Hard to do in the current healthcare model though (and no doubt there will always be those who figure out a way to game any system).

Not surprising that cardiac surgeons were reluctant to see this performed and are doing as much as they can to limit the extent of its use.

Because interventional cardiologists are performing the procedure (not surgeons, at least initially) this hurts the cardiac surgeons' revenue (and could ultimately replace open surgery - making the expertise that surgeons have achieved over decades become redundant, thus lowering their power, prestige and influence).

Of course, when surgeons start training in these techniques, they'll start swearing by them (whilst stating emphatically that they're the only doctors that should be doing them).

This is an enormous problem across medicine - specialists (especially surgeons) not wanting to lose turf to other less invasive options, which harms patient care across the board - see also intracranial aneurysm treatment (surgical clipping vs endovascular treatment), abdominal aortic aneurysm treatment (open surgery vs. endovascular), fibroid treatment (hysterectomy vs. minimally invasive options) and oncology treatments (surgery and radiotherapy vs. interventional minimally invasive procedures).

Always get a second (and third) opinion and look for alternatives before agreeing to have an invasive surgery - that's not an endorsement of new age alternative BS though, do your own research.

Um, how is this news?

18-35 year olds have more marketeer-accessible expendable income (ie, most don't have mortgages, large family expenditures and haven't racked up medical bills), most are financially naive (made deliberately so by perverse educational systems) and most are socially aspirational. This isn't unique to millennials though.

Absolutely right. Most of what passes for "brain science" in the popular media is neuro-bollocks. This doesn't stop quacks and scammers from trying to make a quick buck out of books, bullshit EEG devices and other businesses based on exploiting public ignorance.