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Some Audience Responses To Date:
One Viewer’s Critique:
My Response:
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This study, like many others, isn't able to distinguish between cause and effect. That is, does sleep apnea cause the metabolic changes in the brain (as you and the researchers assume), or does the brain injury cause sleep apnea? The information in the study cannot distinguish between those two cases.
This issue comes up often in biological psychiatry research when a change in the brain is found associated with a mental symptom. There are varied approaches to answering it. For example, if the brain changes were found to precede development of overt sleep apnea, one’s suspicion that they played a causal role in the disease would increase; if apneics without significant hypoxemia were found free of such changes, one’s belief in the author’s hypothesis would be strengthened, and likewise if successful treatment of apnea with CPAP reversed these changes. However, before embarking on such an extensive program of research, one needs initial clues as to the existence of such abnormalities, their location and nature. This is just a first step.
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