Tag: 2
-
Leading FND Site Confirms Criticisms on Prevalence Outlined in Our Letter to Neurology Journal
In two recent posts, here and here, I wrote about our letter on inflated prevalence claims for functional neurological disorder (FND) and about the response from the authors of the study we criticized. The 2021 article in NeuroImage: Clinical, “Neuroimaging in functional neurological disorder: state of the field and research agenda,” asserted that FND was the…
-
Unconvincing Response to Letter on FND Prevalence Inflation
As I wrote in a post the other day, the journal NeuroImage: Clinical has just published a letter from a group I organized about the misrepresentation of findings regarding the prevalence of functional neurological disorder (FND). They have also published a response from the authors of the article we criticized. The findings in question were…
-
Update on Our Letter Concerning the Prevalence of Functional Neurological Disorder
In August, I submitted a letter to NeuroImage: Clinical concerning inflated rates of prevalence of functional neurological disorder, on behalf of myself and nine colleagues. After the letter went through peer review and a round of revisions, I was informed in early November that it had been accepted, as I noted in a blog post.…
-
Update on Efforts to Correct False Statements about FND Prevalence
I have continued writing my letter-writing effort to alert journals about papers on functional neurological disorder (FND) that have included false statements regarding the prevalence of the condition reported by a seminal study in the field the reported prevalence of the condition. (I was going to refer to this as a “letter-writing campaign” until I…
-
My Twitter Thread about Slate’s Piece on Long Covid and Mental Illness
Slate recently ran a piece by a young journalist and Stanford neuroscience graduate student, Grace Huckins, about purported links between long Covid and mental illness. I found it problematic. For one thing, in the same sentence it linked to both a story of mine in Codastory.com and one from The Atlantic‘s Ed Yong, and asserted…
-
A Letter Requesting Corrections of Inflated Prevalence Rates in Nine More FND Papers
Several colleagues and I recently wrote to the journal NeuroImage: Clinical to request a correction in a 2021 article about functional neurological disorder (FND). The article included the false claim that a seminal 2010 study found that FND was the second-most-common diagnosis at outpatient neurology clinics. In fact, FND—called conversion disorder at the time—was the…
-
FND Experts Agree To Correct Inflated Prevalence Claim
For years, experts in functional neurological disorder (FND) have cited a seminal study in their field to claim that the diagnosis was the second-most-common presentation at outpatient neurology clinics, with a prevalence of 16%. This claim was, and is, categorically untrue. The Scottish Neurological Symptoms Study (SNSS), which yielded multiple papers about a dozen years…
-
Questions About the Prevalence of Functional Neurological Disorder and the Research on Hoover’s Sign for Functional Leg Weakness
(This is a long-ish post. Sorry! It covers two complicated issues. I want to thank an intrepid source for help with this.) I have great sympathy for patients diagnosed with functional neurological disorder (FND). Their symptoms can be seriously disabling and their plight has long been neglected and dismissed by the medical establishment. When I…
-
Once More Regarding Inflated FND Rates–and a Reprise of a Letter to a Yale Neurologist
Last July, I sent a letter to Benjamin Tolchin, a neurologist at Yale, about the statement, in a 2021 paper for which he was the lead author, regarding prevalence rates for functional neurological disorder (FND). Last month, I sent it again. I’ve still had no response. I am reposting it below because related claims about…