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Amen Clinics
Founded1989 (1989)
FounderDaniel G. Amen
Headquarters
United States
Area served
Newport Beach, California, San Francisco, California, Atlanta, Georgia, Reston, Virginia, Bellevue, Washington, New York City
Websitewww.amenclinics.com

Amen Clinics is a group of mental and physical health clinics that work on the treatment of mood and behavior disorders. It was founded in 1989 by Daniel G. Amen, a self-help author and psychiatrist.[1][2] The clinics perform clinical evaluations and brain SPECT (single photon emission computed tomography) imaging to diagnose and treat their patients.[3][4] Amen Clinics uses SPECT scans, a type of brain-imaging technology, to measure neural activity through blood flow.[5][6] It has a database of more than 100,000 functional brain scans from patients in 111 countries, [7] and several locations throughout the United States.[4][8] The American Psychiatric Association has criticized the clinical appropriateness of Amen's use of brain scans, and in 2006 published a statement saying that "the clinical utility of neuroimaging techniques for planning of individualized treatment has not yet been shown".[9]

Operations

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Amen Clinics was founded in 1989. It has been using brain SPECT in an attempt to diagnose and treat psychiatric illness since 1991.[10] Amen Clinics incorporates questionnaires, clinical histories, and clinical interviews in its practice.[5][11] Some Amen Clinics locations also use quantitative electroencephalography as a diagnostic tool.[12] Amen Clinics has scanned 50,000 people, at an estimated cost of $170 million, according to Daniel Amen.[13]

As of 2014, Amen Clinics had a database of more than 100,000 functional brain scans.[7] The subjects are from 111 countries with ages from 9 months to 101 years old.[7] The database was funded in part by Seeds Foundation in Hong Kong, and developed by Daniel Amen with a team of researchers including Kristen Willeumier.[7] Amen Clinics has treated numerous former athletes, including NFl players.[14][15] Some researchers and physicians have said that evidence for the efficacy of the methods in which the clinic uses SPECT is unclear or absent.[16][17][18][9][13]

Ethics

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This section is an excerpt from Daniel Amen § Ethics of SPECT scanning.[edit]

Questions have been raised about the ethics of selling SPECT scans on the basis of unproven claims: neuroscience professor Martha Farah calls such use "profitable but unproven" and says, "Tens of thousands of individuals, many of them children, have been exposed to the radiation of two SPECT scans and paid thousands of dollars out of pocket (because insurers will not pay) against the advice of many experts".[19] Professor of psychology Irving Kirsch has said of Amen's theory: "Before you start promulgating this and marketing it and profiting from it, you should ethically be bound to demonstrate it scientifically in a peer-reviewed, respected journal", as otherwise, "you're just going down the path of being a snake oil salesman".[20] In a 2011 paper, neuroscientist Anjan Chatterjee discussed example cases that were found on the Amen Clinic's website, including a couple with marital difficulties and a child with impulsive aggression. The paper noted that the examples "violate the standard of care" because a normal clinical diagnosis would have been sufficient and that there "was no reason to obtain functional neuroimaging for diagnostic purposes in these cases."[21] Most patients do not realize that the SPECT scans rely on unproven claims.[22] In 2021, Steven Hyman, director of the Stanley Center for Psychiatric Research, stated, "people who are desperate are vulnerable to snake oil, and this has all of the look and feel of a clinic that's preying on people's desperation."[23][24]

An initial evaluation with SPECT at Amen's clinics cost about $4,000 in 2020.[25] As reported by The Washington Post in 2012, officials at major psychiatric and neuroscience associations and research centers see Amen's claims for the use of SPECT as "no more than myth and poppycock, buffaloing an unsuspecting public."[20]

References

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  1. ^ James Butcher (2008). "Neuropolitics gone mad". The Lancet Neurology. 7 (4): 295. doi:10.1016/S1474-4422(08)70056-5. S2CID 54411790.
  2. ^ "License Information". Medical Board of California. Retrieved November 7, 2012.
  3. ^ Dawn Ford (October 9, 2012). "The Seniors' Situation Room Edition 5 by Dawn Ford". Cornwall Free News. Retrieved November 7, 2012.
  4. ^ a b Everett Catts (October 18, 2012). "Brain expert speaks in Buckhead, opens Sandy Springs clinic". Neighbor Newspapers. Retrieved November 7, 2012.
  5. ^ a b Daniel Carlat (May 19, 2008). "Brain Scans as Mind Readers? Don't Believe the Hype". Wired. Retrieved November 7, 2012.
  6. ^ Daniel G Amen; Manuel Trujillo; Barry Chaitin (2011). "Brain SPECT Imaging in Complex Psychiatric Cases: An Evidence-Based, Underutilized Tool". Open Neuroimaging Journal. 5: 40–8. doi:10.2174/1874440001105010040. PMC 3149839. PMID 21863144.
  7. ^ a b c d Kathy Mahdoubi (13 October 2014). "New SPECT database holds 100K scans for psychiatric study". Molecular Imaging. Retrieved 19 February 2015.
  8. ^ "Amen Clinics & Brain Spect Imaging". Brain World Magazine. October 25, 2012. Retrieved October 9, 2013.
  9. ^ a b American Psychiatric Association (2006). American Psychiatric Association Practice Guidelines for the Treatment of Psychiatric Disorders: Compendium 2006. American Psychiatric Pub. p. 44. ISBN 978-0-89042-385-1.
  10. ^ Daniel G. Amen (26 April 2010). "Change Your Brain, Change Your Body". The Huffington Post. Retrieved 3 February 2015.
  11. ^ Eliza Shapiro (14 December 2012). "Can Daniel Amen Read Your Mind?". The Daily Beast. Retrieved 3 February 2015.
  12. ^ Zoë Kessler (2014). "Shawn Ladd's Excellent Amen Clinics Adventure – Part I". Psych Central. Retrieved 3 February 2015.
  13. ^ a b Chancellor, B.; Chatterjee, A. (2011). "Brain Branding: When Neuroscience and Commerce Collide". AJOB Neuroscience. 2 (4): 18–27. doi:10.1080/21507740.2011.611123. S2CID 17157310.
  14. ^ Leigh Steinberg (3 September 2013). "Death of the NFL: Part 2". Forbes. Retrieved 19 February 2015.
  15. ^ Rick Maese (7 June 2012). "NFL concussions lawsuits aim to improve the damaged brain". The Washington Post. Retrieved 19 February 2015.
  16. ^ Adinoff, Bryon; Devous, Michael (1 Sep 2010). "Response to Amen Letter". The American Journal of Psychiatry. 167 (9). American Psychiatric Association. doi:10.1176/appi.ajp.2010.10050671 (inactive 1 November 2024).{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: DOI inactive as of November 2024 (link)
  17. ^ Hall, Harriet (8 April 2008). "SPECT Scans at the Amen Clinic – A New Phrenology?". Science-Based Medicine. Retrieved 3 October 2013.
  18. ^ Harriet Hall, M.D. (15 November 2007). "A Skeptical View of SPECT Scans and Dr. Daniel Amen". Retrieved 3 October 2013.
  19. ^ Farah, M.J. (2009). "A picture is worth a thousand dollars". Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience (Editorial). 21 (4): 623–4. doi:10.1162/jocn.2009.21133. PMID 19296729. S2CID 29300297.
  20. ^ a b Tucker, Neely (August 9, 2012). "Daniel Amen is the most popular psychiatrist in America. To most researchers and scientists, that's a very bad thing". Washington Post Magazine.
  21. ^ Chancellor, B.; Chatterjee, A. (2011). "Brain branding: When neuroscience and commerce collide". AJOB Neuroscience. 2 (4): 18. doi:10.1080/21507740.2011.611123. S2CID 17157310. Amen Clinics, Inc., has scanned more than 50,000 patients at a cost close to $170 million.
  22. ^ Farah, Martha J.; Gillihan, Seth J. (2013). "Ch. 11 Neuroimaging in Clinical Psychiatry". In Chatterjee, Anjan; Farah, Martha J. (eds.). Neuroethics in Practice. Oxford University Press. pp. 131–143. ISBN 978-0-19-538978-4.
  23. ^ Medaris, Anna (27 January 2022). "A controversial Hollywood psychiatrist conducted Bella Hadid's brain scans, inspiring the model to stop drinking". Insider. Retrieved 26 May 2022.
  24. ^ "People who think they have CTE are seeking treatment at a controversial brain clinic". NPR.org. 23 November 2021. Retrieved 26 May 2022.
  25. ^ Nagappan, Ashwini; Kalokairinou, Louiza; Wexler, Anna (October 2021). "Ethical and Legal Considerations of Alternative Neurotherapies". AJOB Neuroscience. 12 (4): 257–269. doi:10.1080/21507740.2021.1896601. ISSN 2150-7740. PMC 8460707. PMID 33759705.
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