McWhirter Laura, Smyth Heather, Hoeritzauer Ingrid, Couturier Anna, Stone Jon, Carson Alan J
Centre for Clinical Brain Sciences, The University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, UK
Edinburgh Medical School, The University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, UK.
J Neurol Neurosurg Psychiatry. 2023 Apr;94(4):321-325. doi: 10.1136/jnnp-2022-329683. Epub 2022 Dec 6.
The term 'brain fog' is increasingly used colloquially to describe difficulties in the cognitive realm. But what is brain fog? What sort of experiences do people talk about when they talk about brain fog? And, in turn, what might this tell us about potential underlying pathophysiological mechanisms? This study examined first-person descriptions in order to better understand the phenomenology of brain fog.
Posts containing 'brain fog' were scraped from the social media platform Reddit, using python, over a week in October 2021. We examined descriptions of brain fog, themes of containing subreddits (topic-specific discussion forums), and causal attributions.
1663 posts containing 'brain fog' were identified, 717 meeting inclusion criteria. 141 first person phenomenological descriptions depicted forgetfulness (51), difficulty concentrating (43), dissociative phenomena (34), cognitive 'slowness' and excessive effort (26), communication difficulties (22), 'fuzziness' or pressure (10) and fatigue (9). 50% (363/717) posts were in subreddits concerned with illness and disease: including COVID-19 (87), psychiatric, neurodevelopmental, autoimmune and functional disorders. 134 posts were in subreddits about drug use or discontinuation, and 44 in subreddits about abstention from masturbation. 570 posts included the poster's causal attribution, the most frequent attribution being long COVID in 60/570 (10%).
'Brain fog' is used on Reddit to describe heterogeneous experiences, including of dissociation, fatigue, forgetfulness and excessive cognitive effort, and in association with a range of illnesses, drugs and behaviours. Encouraging detailed description of these experiences will help us better understand pathophysiological mechanisms underlying cognitive symptoms in health and disease.
“脑雾”一词越来越多地被通俗地用于描述认知领域的困难。但什么是脑雾？人们在谈论脑雾时会提及哪些经历？反过来，这又能告诉我们关于潜在的病理生理机制的哪些信息？本研究通过检查第一人称描述，以更好地理解脑雾的现象学。
2021年10月的一周内，使用Python从社交媒体平台Reddit上抓取包含“脑雾”的帖子。我们研究了脑雾的描述、包含子版块（特定主题讨论论坛）的主题以及因果归因。
共识别出1663条包含“脑雾”的帖子，其中717条符合纳入标准。141条第一人称现象学描述描绘了健忘（51条）、注意力不集中（43条）、解离现象（34条）、认知“迟缓”与过度费力（26条）、沟通困难（22条）、“模糊感”或压力（10条）以及疲劳（9条）。50%（363/717）的帖子位于与疾病相关的子版块：包括新冠病毒病（87条）、精神疾病、神经发育障碍、自身免疫性疾病和功能性障碍。134条帖子位于关于药物使用或停药的子版块，44条位于关于戒除手淫的子版块。570条帖子包含发帖者的因果归因，最常见的归因是长新冠，占60/570（10%）。
在Reddit上，“脑雾”被用于描述各种不同的经历，包括解离、疲劳、健忘和认知过度费力，并且与一系列疾病、药物和行为有关。鼓励对这些经历进行详细描述将有助于我们更好地理解健康和疾病状态下认知症状背后的病理生理机制。
