I read #77 the opposite way,
@Woolie - that it's all about how ongoing inflammation in the brain is driving sickness behaviour. Maybe I'm reading it out of context.
No, that's not correct. There is no mention of "inflammation in the brain". The suggestion is that there is continued brain activity
of the kind we see when there's inflammation in the body.
When there isn't.
In some of the interviews, I think Harrison is being very careful to phrase things in a certain way, to obscure some aspects of his theory that we might not like. In the other clips, he talks a lot about the Japanese study as showing "inflammation on the brain", but doesn't mention that he believes this occurs because we are misprocessing incoming information from the body.
[btw, in the Japanese "brain inflammation" study, the authors' favoured explanation was that the "inflammation" response in microglial cells was a
consequence of our dysfunctional brain processes (perception of fatigue when there isn't any), not a
cause. To their credit, though, they do say this is only one explanation]
Also, you're right that Harrison is interested in PEM, but not for the reasons you hope. In his model, PEM is created by a false expectation that certain events or activities will lead to malaise. The expectation is learned when a person is "actually ill". Later, that same pattern of events occurs (e.g., we go for a walk), the expectation remains and is not revised. So PEM occurs.
@Sasha, I don't see what else I can do to alert you to the potential dangers of this way of thinking. Yes, its not quite as pejorative as the standard psyc model - or at least doesn't appear to be to outsiders. Which is a plus. Yes, many of the mechanisms are outside of our awareness (although the standard BPS model is compatible with this idea too). Yes, it could lead to objective markers that may help validate our complaints.
But if those "markers" are themselves used to support a largely psychological model of our illness (phrased in neuroscience terms), then are we really any better off?