Thanks Cort.
If the opening paragraph wasn't a case of guilt by association then I don't know what is. Apparently according to the authors, whether [ME/CFS] is different or distinct from malingering, depression, anxiety and "somatoform disorders" remains an outstanding question and "this ignorance fuels vigorous debate about how best to conceptualize and classify these conditions ...". Others who moved on from this many years ago may wonder how much of co-author Sharpe's ignorance and FUD regarding ME/CFS has contributed to this "vigorous debate".
The remaining part of the introduction wasn't too [anterior cingulate cortex and insula] activating (emotionally painful) to read. Skimming the rest of the paper revealed pretty much what I expected from the abstract: ambiguous results of abnormal cognitive processes in higher-order neural systems, implicated as consistent with the "cognitive model", probably a consequence or compensation to the illness rather than the cause, suggestions that reduced grey matter is due to cognitive deconditioning from lack of stimuli.
They don't discuss the need for relevant medical controls, only allude to the lack of psychiatric controls. So after more than 100 years of psycho>somatic ideology and several decades of MRI technology no one has really bothered to control their experiments adequately? There have been some interesting technological developments in neuroimaging over the last decade, these need to be employed properly.
