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New Brain Scans Can Spot PTSD
Neuroscientists think they may have found a scientific method to identify post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) using a brain imaging method called magnetoencephalography (MEG). In the test study, the scientists studied 74 vets with PTSD and 250 civilians without and were able to spot the PTSD sufferers with 90% accuracy. "MEG machines are a fast, sensitive and accurate way to measure electric activity in the brain. Whereas CT scans and MRIs record brain signals every few seconds, MEGs can do it by the millisecond, catching biomarkers and brain activity that the other tests inevitably miss. The study could be a breakthrough for the military, who've been scrambling to address a surge in post-traumatic symptoms among newly returning vets. Right now, troops are evaluated by mental health experts, but diagnosis is a crap-shoot: symptoms can take years to show up, and vary from person to person, even among those exposed to the same traumas. The Pentagon's already been pushing for more objective, systematized diagnosis tools, like portable at-home sleep monitors and genetic testing to detect PTSD vulnerability. They've even launched a program to create stress-mitigating pharmaceuticals."
So if you are in the 10% that doesn't get detected you're SOL? I hope they can increase the accuracy of this.
> line 1: method magnetoencephalography(java/lang/String;) not found
MEGs can do it by the millisecond, catching biomarkers and brain activity that the other tests inevitably miss. How long until we have these in our airports?
Spotting 100% is easy: you just need a machine with a blinking light that says "PTSD". Unfortunately that puts a lot of healthy people in therapy.
Nobody expects Wired to figure that out, but the original press release (scavenged from the array of irrelevant links) doesn't say, either.
I assume that the actual article (in the Journal of Neural Engineering) actually says something about it. Anybody got a subscription?
so the nexus six can't be far off
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nexus_Six
and now, with this article, we have the invention of the voight-kampff machine
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voight-Kampff_machine
blade runner future, here we come!
when do we get japanese geisha noodle commercials with japanese classical music projected onto blimps?
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
"scientists studied 74 vets with PTSD and 250 civilians "
Is it possible that they aren't spotting PTSD but a wiring from a soldier? I am a civillian with NO military experience, but I do hang around several soldiers and police officers. Each group has similar mannerisms and they have ALL had similar experiences within that group (basic training for the green guys, the academy for the blue ones). I see a good chance that this new scan could be picking that up.
A more valid group would be:
- some vets without PTSD
- some vets with PTSD
- some civillians with PTSD
- some civillians without PTSD
Of those four groups some significant correlation would be helpful too. For example a set of soldiers from Afghanistan with and without PTSD. A set of civillians that had been through the same or similar trauma (say armed robbery or 9/11 or plane accident). Breaking it down by age would also be useful, a Vietnam veteran who has had a few years either with or without treatment would be a lot different than a recent return home from the Sandbox.
They've even launched a program to create stress-mitigating pharmaceuticals.
Sounds like something out of ST:TNG from the Q trial in the second episode. There is a drug available that helps mitigate the stress from a traumatic episode that was being tested a few years ago. I'm wondering if it's the same drug.
Either way, I think the way the gov't is treating our wounded vets is horrible. I really hope that the new test helps out better than what they're doing now.
PPTSD
"Pre"-post traumatic stress disorder.
EFT (Emotional Freedom Techniques) is one of the most successful therapies for PTSD, Vietnam veterans who had been suffering from PTSD for decades were able to free themselves of PTSD within days with EFT. If you or someone you know is affected by PTSD, let them know about EFT, almost everyone can learn EFT in less than 15 minutes for free and they can then use it on their own without having to share the horrible memories with a therapist or anyone else.
EFT introduction video.
Anti-military much?
Not every Vet has killed but many have been through those situations that can cause PTSD.
But from TFA,
Neuroscientists Say Brain Scans Can Spot PTSD
Did anyone else first think "The Ghostbusters" when they saw the four silhouettes? That totally freaked me out for a few seconds.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnetoencephalography
The key difference from other imaging technologies is that this is completely passive, it directly measures magnetic fields created by activity in your brain. To get accurate results with such tiny fields, it must be done in a magnetically shielded room with a large number of sensitive sensors.
It's interesting to me that there are new developments in PTSD treatment within less than a decade of of the declaration of 'car accident' being the #1 cause of PTSD. I mean, sure soldiers get it in wartime and 'police action' time, but when the car insurance companies start to lose money...then it's ON...
I judt got a nre Kinesis keybiartf so please excusr ant egregiou typos.
Lewis Black made a very valid point in one of his routines about the disambiguation of this problem known as post traumatic stress disorder. Over time, it has gone from 'shell shock' to 'battle fatigue' to 'post traumatic stress disorder' and now to a simple acronym: PTSD. It's unfortunate, because the acronym carries none of the weight that the original name (shell shock) used to carry. I won't go so far as to say that we are moving to something like Newspeak and the "destruction of words" (Syme, character from Orwell's 1984), but this cannot be good, especially not for the poor souls afflicted with it.
If the test labels you as having PTSD, what will become of you? For example, will you forfeit your second amendment rights?
A work that expires before its copyright never enters the public domain and thus enjoys eternal copyright protection.
AFAIK stress mitigating pharmaceuticals have been in use by both civilians and military for thousands of years... check out: this
For such an interesting result, its a bit surprising that they went for "The Journal of Neural Engineering". Impact factor = 2.7. Only been around since 2004. I don't want to denigrate science that gets published in lower-impact journals (because lots of good stuff ends up there), but the impact here is not congruous with the potential scientific and social ramifications of the results. I think some of the issues raised above might have something to do with it.
Seriously, Slashdot moderation has become a wretched hive of reactionary scum who downmod anything they don't want to hear. The parent post is far from being a troll.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
I wonder if it can tell if you were in a bad marriage for 15 years with a banshee from the netherworld?!
The Thing is.
Remove the cause, there was a study published recently comparing PTSD in both american and british soldiers, it was about the way they were treated just after they left combat. The americans debriefed the soldiers immediately after arriving, effectively forcing them to relive a second time the events, and make a profounder impression, while the britts let them get catch their breath and relax for a few hours, apparently the differences were staggering. I think it was about the first Iraq war, but recently just recently published, sometime during the last 6 months.
No, the OP is correct, it is very hard to get the smell of your friend's blood off of you, particularly brain matter for some reason.
Meg still has lame spatial resolution. It's great that these guys are doing this and all, but it would be much more interesting know which functionally connected networks are up or down regulated in PTSD. MEG only measures the surface, it could be that the true seat of PTSD is actually deeper in the brain and detected in MEG only because there is a relatively high density of neurons conjugate to the true center which project onto a region of cortical surface.
This is a very helpful diagnostic tool as there is still a stigma associated with any sort of mental disorder, particularly in the military. Some subsets handle it better than others; while some groups are more in the mindset of "get it treated" the idea of "malingerers" still holds true in some places. Self-diagnosis lags when there's a stigma attached.
I would also be interested to see this used to help diagnose sexual trauma. Among the female population of the military, rape is still the highest inducer of PTSD, and I'm sure that holds true for civilians as well.
The biggest reason for PTSD is that we, as humans in general, are not wired to cope with extreme trauma. Nor are we particularly wired to cause death. We train our military to automate these actions but in some people the brain can't cope with what the body has done. Look up "Achilles in America" for more information on the subject— there have been many studies done in and out of the military, and there are quite a few higher-ups who want to see the best treatments possible— and some who are looking into ways to mitigate the effects before they occur.
Actually I am a lab rat in an elaborate plot to take over the world.
What about scanning vets without ptsd, or civilians like cops with it? Even better, scan a lot of soldiers before they leave, and scan for differences when they come back. Note ptsd sufferers.
As their experiment stands currently, they might have only discovered a difference between a military-trained brain and a civilian one.
To launch headlong into the most expensive, unworkable, unreasonable, ill-thought, entirely not-researched solutions. I'm not talking so much about the brain scan here; Harvard came up with the idea that PTSD could be detected in the brain, along with bi polar disorder and a few other conditions which might have detectable pathologies, and it's a very good idea.
What's a very bad idea is the notion that PTSD can be stopped, or at least mitigated with chemical or mechanical tools. Once you already have PTSD, or indeed any disorder on the dissociative scale (Howell, Chu), then there is some good evidence that pharmaceuticals can help mitigate some, but not all of the symptoms. Currently those pharmaceuticals fall into two major classes: sedative-hypnotics and atypical antipsychotics. Sedative-hypnotics, particularly benzodiazepines, cause massive problems with the creation of short term memories. Atypical antipsychotics have a host of horrible side effects, from flattened affect to tardive dyskenisia-- which is the permanent, uncontrolled flexing of small muscles, like facial tics, thumb-wiggles and circles, and shuffling gait. In short, they should not be used for any condition which is not treatable by any other means.
Also, there is no evidence (as has been noted by Harvard, at least) that there is any sort of genetic pre-disposition to the development of PTSD, or any other environmentally caused dissociative disorder. That is a dead end.
Furthermore, there is also absolutely no evidence that the pre-dosing of atypical antipsychotics or sedatives have any effect whatsoever on the development of PTSD, and in fact in both cases may very probably result in soldiers with far less willingness to shoot the enemy in the face than the military requires.
The fact is that the Pentagon is and has always created an enormous mess out of the minds that manage to survive their plans, and there's simply no way around it. It would be really great, I think, to come up with some way to make war more palatable for the people who have to be in it, but somehow the very root of the notion seems disingenuous.
War is fucking hell.
I've known a few cats that could be a bit brutal with their claws, but I had no idea vetinary science could be so mentally scarring!!
Burn in hell fucker
I may have PTSD from aggressive FBI+DEA domestic surveillance activities.
Armed robbery or a plane accident wouldn't bother me, but all those damn government spooks following me around was freakin' traumatic!
Getting raided ain't so bad psychologically, but thinking you're going to get raided in the early morning hours and dragged off to jail is stressful as hell!
(suspected criminal hacker, known drug dealer... alleged "anarchist" -- HEH)
I suggest the implementation of such devices at every gate at the airports past the X-ray body scanner.
A positive detection would certainly indicate a highly suspect subject to be immediately arrested for further questioning.
I was going make a related point, but didn't want to be redundant, so I'm piggybacking on your post. My point is tangenial to yours. PTSD is not exclusive to the Military. Rape victims often have it, as one example of many. It is a non-linearity in the precognitive response mechanism of the brain (the Amygdala.) Furthermore, you can be a civilian who has it and go undiagnosed for your entire life. Typically the memories related to the cause of the PTSD are suppressed to the subconscious, and the sufferer only becomes conscious of them through various techniques for accessing the subconscious, including therapy, hypnotism, and meditation. Seperating them this way is a flaw on many levels including but not limited to the one you identified.
They need to compare those with PTSD to those without it, preferably with none of them having undergone the brainwashing/trauma of boot camp of any kind, Police, Military or other. Then they need to compensate for the fact that some "false positives" will not be false positives at all. If it really works they will see "false positives" when those affected by PTSD but undiagnosed are tested.
Guns don't kill people; Physics kills people! - John Lithgow as Dick Solomon on Third Rock From The Sun
If you suspect PTSD, you can just MRI their head. No need to look at the images; if they go apeshit as soon as the thing starts up, they've got PTSD. (if they go apeshit before it starts up, they're claustrophobic and you'll have to try something else).
Obviously this is an initial study and that's why it is NOT a case matched or well controlled study. They are using something that is mostly just used in research (MEG) and thus don't want to scan a bunch of normals because they just want to find something to chase after - hence only studying PTSD afflicted vets and normal civilians. Now they can go about studying PTSD/non-PTSD vets, regular vets vs civilians, etc.
But my issue is that the VA tends to just want something on file all the time. If this turned out to show evidence of PTSD (yet not be specific or sensitive enough to rule out or rule in PTSD on its own) then what will happen is that every vet who says they sometimes have dreams about combat is going to get a scan and have it in their file, even if it means absolutely nothing without the clinical diagnosis. They do this already with x-rays - a new vet complaining of even occasional pain in his joints will get them all imaged, even though there is no reason to have the x-ray. It's not cost effective and probably poor for the patient (from then on any "pain" might get passed off because of a normal x-ray before). I suppose it might be related to getting service connected (everything comes down to money).
So in 5 years will we be paying for every vet to be screened with MEG? And what happens when MEG also sometimes spots people with hostile and violent tendencies that tend to commit crimes? Or drug addicts?
Hopefully, it is so expensive or time consuming that it will only be used in the proper and relevant clinical setting (even if MEG said yes this person has PTSD or no he doesn't, psychiatrists would probably tread the patient the same way regardless based on symptoms - go to classes, groups, etc).
MEG is not new, it's over 40 years old.
Conceptually it's even older. It is the magnetic signals associated with the well known EEG 'brain waves', first recorded in 1928.
It is exactly and only the perpendicular to the EEG signals, and as such are analyzed in much the same way, and represent the same neural processes.
What good it is, is it can detect and localize 'dipole' generators in the folds of the cortex. Since the negative and positive ends of those are the same distance from the scalp, they balance out on EEG and can't be seen. The magnetic field to such a dipole is most prominent in this configuration.
The drawback is that detecting the ~10 femtotesla signals require massive shielding to prevent pretty much any near by electrical activity to interfere. With signals that weak, it's a good thing the magnetic field isn't reduced by the skull and scalp like EEG (by 3 orders of magntitude).
The detectors are superconducting quantum interference devices (SQUIDS). They require massive technical infrastructure and maintenance, ie. great expense.
Except for the localization noted, if MEG can do it, EEG can do it easier, cheaper (three orders of magnitude), faster (in terms of turnover), and operated by personnel with less training. There are portable EEGs capable of being operated in the field, but even a full size unit is about the size of a desktop computer and can be run off a laptop.
I'd be very interested to hear what TFA has to say about why MEG is necessary. Their 248 SQUID machine is high density, but so are the 256 electrode EEG that have been on the market for years. I'd also like to know exactly what the signals of interest are, so I can figure out how to pull it out of EEG with far less sophisticated equipment, such as exists in pretty much every VA neurology department.
"I may be synthetic, but I'm not stupid." -- Bishop 341-B
How is this supposed to work if your disorder is triggered by an external stimulus, like a sound, an image or an odor?
So I could prove the method I developed, to heal any mental disorder?
And prove that it’s way more efficient than anything classic psychology does?
Now if only I had access to such a device, and someone who knows how to use it...
Any sufficiently advanced intelligence is indistinguishable from stupidity.
Hi.
Thank you for sharing your story. I can't imagine what other difficulties you're going through besides the one you've mentioned, but I'm taking a wild guess here: it isn't easy being you.
And I don't think I can say anything other than this: I wish you the best of luck in living a happy, fulfilling live, whatever that means to you, and I hope your limitations won't get too much in the way of that.
This line stood out: "They've even launched a program to create stress-mitigating pharmaceuticals." Reminded me of the JoCo song "I Feel Fantastic", written as an accompaniment to Popular Science's article Will Drugs Make Us Smarter and Happier?.
"I will trust Google to 'do no evil' until the founders no longer run it." Hello Alphabet.