Category: Neuroscience/Mental Health
Pain Reprocessing Therapy
In a trial of Pain Reprocessing Therapy (PRT), 2/3 of patients with chronic low back pain reported significant pain relief with psychotherapy that helped them reconceptualize the pain as nondangerous. Impressive if true, but flaws in research design make the study untrustworthy.
Emotional Freedom Technique – Acupuncture for the Mind
Emotional Freedom Technique is based in pseudoscience and inadequate clinical research.
Patients Who Deceive
Loren Pankratz's book Patients Who Deceive covers the whole spectrum of different kinds of deception. It is well written, informative, and entertaining, with case examples that read like detective stories.
Paralyzed Patient Communicates with Brain Implant
Brain-machine interfaces continue to advance.
Facilitated Communication Is Still Pseudoscience
Facilitated communication is a harmful pseudoscientific technique that has managed to survive through rebranding and deception.
The World’s First Productivity Drink
Magic Mind claims to be the world's first productivity drink. There's no supporting evidence.
Fetal Signs of Autism
More evidence that ASD is a developmental disorder that begins in the womb.
Videos Said to be “Proof” that Nonverbal Autistics Can Communicate by Spelling
The father of nonverbal autistic child believes videos constitute proof that other children with autism can communicate by by pointing to letters on a board held by a facilitator to spell out words. He is wrong.
Antivaxxers misuse the Defense Medical Epidemiology Database to demonize COVID-19 vaccines
Over the last couple of weeks, a claim that the Defense Medical Epidemiology Database (DMED) shows that COVID-19 vaccines have caused a massive increase in cancer, neurological, and cardiovascular diseases in military personnel has gone viral. A closer look shows that the increases are almost certainly spurious and due to underreporting in previous years.
Using AI Technology To Treat Mental Illness
AI will likely play a big role in treating mental illness in the future, but quack uses are also likely to proliferate.