[HN Gopher] Researchers seeking better measures of cognitive fat...
___________________________________________________________________
Researchers seeking better measures of cognitive fatigue
Author : bikenaga
Score : 92 points
Date : 2025-12-10 19:13 UTC (3 days ago)
(HTM) web link (www.nature.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.nature.com)
| TurkishPoptart wrote:
| Long Covid is really not new. It is virtually indistinguishable
| from the condition long known in the medical lexicon as post-
| infectious syndrome or myalgic encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue
| syndrome (ME/CFS). Although some have recognized and studied
| their similarities, it seems no one has made the simplifying
| observation that they are essentially the same condition.[1]
|
| [1]: https://www.statnews.com/2023/09/14/long-covid-me-cfs-
| myalgi...
| tick_tock_tick wrote:
| Because COVID got political if you drop COVID from the name
| your ability to get funding and attention to study it falls off
| a cliff.
| MLgulabio wrote:
| I really don't understand this comment? Its quite commonly
| known that this is the same/related?
|
| Your 'source' is btw. from 2023 and as far as i understand it,
| the main issue is, that due to covid, a lot more people got it
| but because it was already ignored or played down before, it
| still is and the people in need just don't get help.
|
| Covid apparently triggered it in more people than before.
|
| I also have the feeling that someone else posted this
| missconception a few weeks ago on hn. Or was that you too?
| amelius wrote:
| Is this a scientific fact or a hypothesis?
| wizzwizz4 wrote:
| In the limit, there's no difference between a scientific fact
| and an unfalsified hypothesis. I'm not aware of anyone
| falsifying this one, and it's over five years old, so I'm
| going to say "scientific fact".
|
| At this point, even if it _is_ falsified, that falsification
| will probably take the form "here is an exception to the
| general rule", like how we still use Newton's law of
| gravitation even though it was falsified by Urbain Le
| Verrier's 1859 observations of Mercury.
| amelius wrote:
| If a hypothesis has not been falsified that does not mean
| there is consensus around it in the scientific community.
|
| Your statement can also be applied to the inverse of the
| hypothesis, after all.
| wizzwizz4 wrote:
| I'll put it another way: long COVID has been studied
| quite a lot over the past 5 years, and I'm not aware of
| anyone being able to distinguish it from ME/CFS (except
| by definition). People appear to have stopped _trying_ to
| draw a distinction, by and large, in favour of trying to
| identify better category boundaries to use instead. See
| https://doi.org/10.3390/biomedicines13112797 for a Nov
| 2025 literature review, which basically says "except for
| long COVID being caused by SARS-CoV-2, it's _very_
| difficult to tell ME /CFS-like long COVID and ME/CFS
| apart" in excruciating detail. Some things have been
| found to occur in long COVID but not found to occur in
| ME/CFS, and vice versa, but afaik there's nothing found
| to occur in ME/CFS-like long COVID that's been found to
| _not_ occur in ME /CFS.
|
| ( _Technically_ , long COVID is a broader diagnosis,
| encompassing some long-term conditions caused by a
| COVID-19 infection that are distinct from ME/CFS, but I
| consider that a "by definition" distinction rather than
| anything _real_. This is what you 'd expect if ME/CFS had
| multiple causes, and COVID-19 infection could cause
| multiple chronic conditions, and most long COVID is
| actually ME/CFS.)
|
| The ME Association came to this conclusion a couple of
| years ago: https://meassociation.org.uk/2023/05/updated-
| booklet-long-co...
|
| > The ME Association (MEA) takes the view that Long Covid
| and ME/CFS are both examples of a serious and
| debilitating condition that can follow any type of viral
| infection.
| tbrownaw wrote:
| Not sure about the ME/CFS thing, but "post-infectious
| syndrome" is literally what its name says it is which makes
| it a larger category that "long covid" would taxonomize
| under.
| smj-edison wrote:
| https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/40627388/#&gid=article-
| figur... (figure one)
| PaulKeeble wrote:
| Symptom wise and quite a lot of the biology they definitely
| appear similar. The problem is the genetics studies show some
| overlap, about 80 combined SNPs for ME/CFS out of 270 and out
| of around 150 for Long Covid.
|
| There is more to it than just different genetic mappings
| because while both conditions share mitochondria differences
| which compartments are different. Depending on how deep you dig
| into the biology they appear the same or quite different and a
| number of multiple point blood, urine and saliva tests can
| distinguish the diseases from each other.
|
| I think at this point its more accurate to say they are
| overlapping conditions, they have similarities but they are
| different conditions. Sister diseases much in the same way
| there is overlap in Fibromylgia and Gulf War syndrome with
| ME/CFS and each other. Long Covid is another post infection
| Neurological and immune disease with unknown biomarker/core
| pathology. There are clearly a lot of measurable changes that
| are dysfunctional so its every bit as real biological disease
| as the others. What they definitely share is a high amount of
| debilitation, severe disability and patient reduction in
| quality of life on the same set of 280 symptoms in a very
| similar patter of prevalence.
|
| Its also now a disease with very little research funding world
| wide as well so the situation is unlikely to improve for the
| 400m+ sufferers world wide.
| aswegs8 wrote:
| Is that from GWAS/MR Studies?
| PaulKeeble wrote:
| There has been a couple of GWAS and also a few SNP
| combination studies that I have seen, could have been a few
| more I missed. Nothing full genome yet so that might
| increase or decrease the overlap.
| pitched wrote:
| https://archive.is/5Ty0K
| PaulKeeble wrote:
| Truth is we are no closer to having a biomarker for fatigue.
| There is no particular reason why the normal fatigue that people
| get from working hard has anything to do with the chronic fatigue
| that ME/CFS and other chronic diseases face. ME/CFS is unique in
| its payback where a sufferers pushes through the fatigue and ends
| up with symptoms worsening and new symptoms 12-72 hours later
| that can last a day to the rest of their lives. That isn't just
| fatigue and the UK doctors have been trying to make ME/CFS all
| about fatigue since the 1980s and it caused immense harm. It
| actually has about 280 symptoms, of which fatigue is just one and
| not even the most debilitating or important one.
| pitched wrote:
| Something important to keep in mind is that cognitive fatigue
| is a protective system meant to protect our cells from harm.
| Pushing through anyways would be unlikely to cause harm in a
| healthy system. Post-covid is an extremely stressed one though.
| Would be like going to the gym after tearing a muscle and being
| surprised it got worse.
| arjie wrote:
| > _To better understand fatigue, Pessiglione, Chib and other
| researchers are trying to bridge an understanding of its
| biochemical workings with how it affects motivation4. The current
| hypothesis: cognitive fatigue arises from metabolic changes in
| parts of the brain that are responsible for cognitive control_
|
| This will be interesting to see because for a long time there's
| been a lot of work saying that "ego depletion" isn't a thing[0]
| and I swear I have tried to believe this but my own personal
| experience is completely different. Later in the night, and when
| I'm mentally tired I do experience this: poor impulse control,
| lowered emotion regulation, the whole shebang. It'll be
| interesting to see what the basis is for this, because despite
| taking all that research at face-value I have to say that now
| after all these years, I can't help but think it must be wrong.
|
| 0: though some have claimed that it is a thing if you believe
| that it's a thing, i.e. it happens to those who believe in it.
| aswegs8 wrote:
| Ego depletion isn't a thing if you don't believe in it? Who
| said that? Dr. Goggins?
| arjie wrote:
| Haha! Listen, the "you can do it if you believe in yourself"
| stuff always sounds bogus. But there was some stuff around
| ten years ago about this. Here's an example:
| https://www.pnas.org/doi/full/10.1073/pnas.1313475110#F1
| DiscourseFan wrote:
| I don't think its _completely_ bogus. There are lots of
| things you can do that you don't realize you can. But 40-50
| hours of work a week, even if you don't even leave your
| house, still takes a lot out of you.
| IsTom wrote:
| I feel there is more than one type of mental fatigue. Some of
| them can be forced through (e.g. the emotional kind that
| happens when you have to do something you don't want to do) and
| some can't (e.g. not having enough sleep for prolonged time).
| pitched wrote:
| Physical fatigue is lack of ATP and happens through the day as
| oxidation builds up. Cognitive fatigue is a build-up of used
| neurotransmitters that also build up over the day. These two
| processes interact with each other though where
| neurotransmitter reuptake uses a lot of ATP. I see that
| connection between them as ego depletion. If true, the best
| solution to it is a nap because that will help clear the junk
| out.
| j45 wrote:
| I'm sharing this more for folks who might have looked in a lot of
| places and are still seeking answers.
|
| There has been a lot more science in this area it seems in the
| last 5 years, maybe it's just me, and the attention to do with
| long covid, or other things that cross the blood/brain barrier.
|
| It's encouraging to see articles like this, since there is no
| single measure or signal of this, its really about considering
| brain health in general, and doing everything that is possible to
| eliminate neuroinflammation that can be.
|
| The challenge for folks suffering with symptoms that includes a
| neurological thing like brain fog is the challenge of usually
| having to be the Quarterback integrating between specialists,
| because specialists don't necessarily integrate. For someone with
| cognitive fatigue, since it's differnet for everyone on different
| tasks, it can be a lot.
|
| It's been eye opening to learn how many specialists first
| overlook proper neck posture and position since it can have a
| direct effect on what's getting into/out of the brain and
| downstream symptoms. Advocating for the basic inputs first before
| trying things is critical.
|
| Additionally, tools like QEEG and FMRI are promising, not super
| mainstream yet but appear to have decent information it can
| provide of what is happening in the brain. In addition to this,
| the area of neurofeedback (devices like mendi, bellabee, etc seem
| to have some promise to help in some cases).
|
| Another thing that too often gets missed is first ensuring things
| are OK physiologically. A simple xray of the neck and where
| nerves, blood and more go up into the brain is too often a step
| that's missed, and quite often there might be some compression,
| tightness or pinches there limiting the brain to recieve what it
| normally may have - and instead effort is spent trying to figure
| out how to get the brain operating better with a garden hose
| that's been slightly pinched.
|
| Fatigue to the extent I understand it neurologically seems to at
| least two sided dice: energy and nutrition being available when
| and where it's needed on one side, and the things needed in place
| to use that energy effectively.
|
| Chronic depletion or deficiencies in certain vitamins, amino
| acids, etc can also build up over time. Doing what we can for
| nutrition is critical, including any research backed
| neuroinflammation reducing supplements (magnesium threonate,
| saffron, omega 3, tumeric, etc).
| gnosis67 wrote:
| BURN IT!
|
| You are working against yourself in this problem.
|
| To master cognitive capacity is similar to physical labor. There
| are those who do not resist the efficiency of over achieving and
| there are those who have no idea what that means.
|
| Rathering a more convenient less exhaustive measure is where you
| short yourself.
|
| Burn it. Do the work. The exhaustive measures will make you more
| complete than the banal need which drives you.
|
| Your lazy delegation is the seed of your hypocrisy and it shall
| blossom into the fatigue of your self reliance.
|
| Only you can bear the terrible burden of free will. And that
| comes at the cost of your determination to resolve.
| matt3210 wrote:
| I start to go blind when programming for too long. Does that
| count?
| pitched wrote:
| You should probably talk to ChatGPT about that. ...or see a
| doctor, if that's still a thing people do?
| bdbdbdb wrote:
| I wonder when they get tired thinking about the problem, do they
| get more motivated?
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2025-12-13 23:00 UTC)