Carl Heneghan director of the Centre for Evidence Based Medicine, University of Oxford responds to this weeks widely reported British researchers published in the Journal of Neuroscience who have developed a brain scan which can detect autism in adults with 90% accuracy.

To obtain a useful result, a diagnostic study needs to include a broad spectrum of the diseased, from mild to severe. A study also needs to have independent, blind comparison of test results (in this case the brain scan) with a reference standard (the current tests for autism) among a consecutive series of patients suspected (but not known) to have the target disorder and replication of studies in other settings.

But this isn’t my main concern with the reporting of the results. If they stand up to scrutiny and brain scans are adopted widely in the population it will be an expensive waste of money. In those with a positive test, autism will be diagnosed with an accuracy of only 5%, potentially leading to more harm than good.

Dr Ecker said she hoped the findings might result in a widely available scan to test for autism.

Wait a minute, what has happened? One minute the world news is reporting a test that has 90% accuracy, and I’m saying it is only 5% accurate. link to read more

Source: The Guardian

Severe mental illness is more common among college students than it was a decade ago, with more young people arriving on campus with pre-existing conditions and a willingness to seek help for emotional distress, according to a study presented at the 118th annual convention of the American Psychological Association. The data support what college mental health professionals have noted for some time. [continue reading…]

“I don’t know what you mean by ‘glory,’ ” Alice said.
Humpty Dumpty smiled contemptuously. “Of course you don’t—till I tell you. I meant ‘there’s a nice knock-down argument for you!’ ”
“But ‘glory’ doesn’t mean ‘a nice knock-down argument’,” Alice objected.
“When I use a word,” Humpty Dumpty said, in a rather a scornful tone, “it means just what I choose it to mean—neither more nor less.”
“The question is,” said Alice, “whether you can make words mean so many different things.”
“The question is,” said Humpty Dumpty, “which is to be master that’s all.”
Alice was too much puzzled to say anything, so after a minute Humpty Dumpty began again. “They’ve a temper, some of them—particularly verbs, they’re the proudest—adjectives you can do anything with, but not verbs—however, I can manage the whole lot! Impenetrability! That’s what I say!”

The Guardian published this exquisitely written tribute to historian Tony Judt, who died last week, If words fall into disrepair, what will substitute? They are all we have

In a world of Facebook, MySpace and Twitter (not to mention texting), pithy allusion substitutes for exposition. Where once the internet seemed an opportunity for unrestricted communication, the commercial bias of the medium – “I am what I buy” – brings impoverishment of its own. My children observe of their own generation that the communicative shorthand of their hardware has begun to seep into communication itself: “People talk like texts. link to read more

Source: the Guardian