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Author Topic: MLC Monster Biochemistry, Neurotransmitters, and Brain Research V

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MLC Monster Re: Biochemistry, Neurotransmitters, and Brain Research V
#80: December 19, 2018, 03:34:44 AM
Interesting. Xyz, thanks for sharing. I never entered the previous conversations about bvFTD but one of my close friend’s father lives in a facility and has FTD. It’s very, very sad but nothing like MLC.
It’s very hard on my friend. He’s still married to his wife, but as he’s in a facility with no hope of recovery, his wife has a boyfriend. In his early pre-diagnosis days, he bought a ring and a truck for another friend of his daughter. Now, you can read that and say “Yes! MLC!” On paper, it’s easy to make that parallel. In real life, it was absolutely nothing like it.
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I had the chance to speak to this client's spouse, the one who has FTD. It was very enlightening for me. It validated that this is NOT MLC.

I felt very sad for the spouse. :'(
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"Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see" Hebrews 11:1

"You enrich my life and are a source of joy and consolation to me. But if I lose you, I will not, I must not spend the rest of my life in unhappiness."

" The truth does not change according to our ability to stomach it". Flannery O'Connor

https://www.midlifecrisismarriageadvocate.com/chapter-contents.html

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I think it is not always possible to say in the early stages who has bvFTD and who doesn't. If you read about bvFTD, a large percentage present and progress atypically. There is also the possibility that this poorly understood condition is a spectrum disorder.

I'm mentioning this here because my sister researches bvFTD and has participated on panels and met with people who have it, or who have family members with it. She said following this, she felt it was highly possible that this ran in my ex's family.

Again, this is not a diagnosis — simply to say, I feel there is a real merit to acknowledging that our spouses may not all have the same thing, just something affecting the same part or parts of the brain, however permanently or temporarily.

I've mentioned before, I would make my first consideration of outcome/progression for our spouses based on their own family members. If there seems to be a family pattern, my feeling is that this is the best indicator of outcome.
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Thank you for the info, Xyzcf.

There is no bvFTD in Mr J's family. His paternal grandmother had Alzeimer's, but so does my paternal grandmother. And mum has vascular dementia.

There is also an history of mental illness in both sides of the family, but most of us have nothing. At least, so far.
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Continuing our bvFTD discussion, I just came across this article and felt shocked to see it described this way. (As I have often felt my ex is now a sociopath.)

FULL DISCLAIMER FOR USUAL SUSPECTS: I am not saying everyone or even anyone on this forum has bvFTD, nor suggesting that they do not, even if you have met someone with bvFTD who does not seem like your spouse or the spouses you read about. However, some people may find this helpful/interesting, and yes — some people on this forum may have a spouse with early stage bvFTD and they should be aware what this disease is.

Sociopathic Dementia
http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/neuroskeptic/2010/09/22/sociopathic-dementia

FTD only accounts for a small fraction of dementias in total (estimates range from 2% to 10%), but it typically strikes people aged in their 50s or 60s, i.e. much earlier than the average for Alzheimer’s disease, the most common cause of dementia. As a result, FTD accounts for a large proportion of early-onset cases.

The symptoms are different to those of Alzheimer’s, at least in the early stages. Memory problems and confusion are not prominent. Nor are hallucinations and delusions, which are seen in 20% of Alzheimer’s, but only 2% of FTD.

Instead, patients often present with language problems – either forgetting what words mean, starting with uncommon words and progressing to easy ones (“semantic dementia”), or losing the ability to articulate speech (“nonfluent aphasia”).

But the most disturbing effects are behavioural and personality changes. These are not seen in all cases, but in some people (the “behavioural variant“), they are the main symptom. Patients may begin to act entirely out of character, including criminal acts.

Aggressive behaviour is also sometimes seen in Alzheimer’s, but it’s usually associated with confusion or hallucinations: people “don’t know what they’re doing”. In FTD, patients can commit serious crimes even though their cognitive function is pretty much intact: they do know what they’re doing.

Mario F. Mendez discusses this in a new paper, The Unique Predisposition to Criminal Violations in Frontotemporal Dementia, and asks whether people who commit crimes while suffering from FTD should be considered legally responsible for their apparantly “sociopathic” actions. He presents 4 case histories.

Patient 1: A left-handed male in his sixties began stalking and attempting to molest children for the first time in his life. He followed children home from school and tried to touch them… On another occasion, he stood at the foot of a pool and stared at the children for a prolonged time.
When he exposed himself to his neighbor’s children, he was arrested. The patient did not deny his actions, could describe them in detail, and endorsed them as wrong and harmful. Despite this, he stated that he did not feel that he was causing harm at the time of his acts.

The patient’s personality had deteriorated over the prior four years, with decreased concern for others, disinhibition, and compulsive hoarding. He had caused disturbances at work, such as intruding into others’ conversations and walking into others’ offices… constantly pilfering… hiding money…. In addition, he ate indiscriminately, even going through waste containers and eating garbage. He stopped showering and wore the same clothes every day.

Neuropsychological testing and brain scans suggested early FTD, and his mother had reportedly suffered unspecified dementia; FTD is often genetic. He was not prosecuted. This case has a lot in common with the man who became a pedophile after surgery for a brain tumour: not just the pedophilia, but other symptoms like compulsive hoarding, over-eating, etc.

Patient 4: A right-handed man in his early fifties had a hit-and-run accident and left the scene without concern. He had struck a van with passengers but kept driving. The police stopped him a short distance away from the scene, and he did not deny his action.
Leaving the scene of an accident was not characteristic of his premorbid personality, yet he had had several recent traffic violations… He could recall and describe the accident, knew that it was wrong to leave the scene, but did not feel the need to stop at the time.

Over the prior two years, the patient’s pervasive behavior had significantly changed. He had become disengaged and emotionally detached; for example, he did not react to the death of his mother…

He was no longer embarrassed over passing gas or belching in public or appearing partially clothed in front of others. The patient had a tendency toward hyperorality, especially for peanuts, and had a decline in personal hygiene. Other aspects of the history included dysarthria and a recent tendency to choke on liquids.

This patient showed clear signs of motor neuron disease, which occurs in up to 15% of FTD cases. He died, as a result of the progression of the motor neuron disease, one year later, after developing other symptoms of FTD. His death meant he could not be tried for the hit-and-run.

Mendez notes that legally, these patients would probably not qualify for the “insanity defence”. Under the British M’Naghten Rules, also adopted by the USA, the defendant is only eligible if they were labouring under such a defect of reason, from disease of the mind, as not to know the nature and quality of the act he was doing; or, if he did know it, that he did not know he was doing what was wrong.

Finally, why does FTD cause sociopathic behaviour? Mendez says that it is because it involves degeneration of the vmPFC, linking FTD patients to the classic case of Phineas Gage whose vmPFC was destroyed by a flying iron rod. But Gage, while he did show personality changes, actually managed to function fairly well in society.

So temporal lobe degeneration probably also contributes to the FTD behavioural syndrome, especially since many of the symptoms (like compulsive eating) are seen in monkeys with temporal lobe lesions.
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« Last Edit: January 13, 2019, 04:42:19 PM by Velika »

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Interesting information about a condition called bvFTD. But it does NOT describe MLC.

bvFTD is a progressive disease that is incurable.


MLC may mimic many, many "conditions" but when the crisis is over, the changes in personality reverse.

Thinking about Acorn's husband...a great example of how a crisis can cause incredible personality changes but they are not permanent as they are in bvFTD.
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"Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see" Hebrews 11:1

"You enrich my life and are a source of joy and consolation to me. But if I lose you, I will not, I must not spend the rest of my life in unhappiness."

" The truth does not change according to our ability to stomach it". Flannery O'Connor

https://www.midlifecrisismarriageadvocate.com/chapter-contents.html

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Interesting information about a condition called bvFTD. But it does NOT describe MLC.

bvFTD is a progressive disease that is incurable.


MLC may mimic many, many "conditions" but when the crisis is over, the changes in personality reverse.

Thinking about Acorn's husband...a great example of how a crisis can cause incredible personality changes but they are not permanent as they are in bvFTD.

XYZSF your example is anecdotal. Acorn's husband is now home so none of our husbands our former spouses could possibly have early stage bvFTD?

There are many science articles that state that it can progress over 20 years, and that a high percentage progress abnormally.

I think it is so, so very damaging to the psychological health of almost all of the people who come here to state MLC is not permanent as a categorical fact, and in fact feeds the "midlife crisis" myth that causes many people on this forum to lose: their finances, their homes, and even their children. Much of the damage we experience is because other people do not believe us when we turn to them for help.

I think bvFTD offers valuable clues as to what parts of the brain "MLC" affects, and therefore should be of interest to anyone at all who has watched their spouse behave in uncharacteristic, destructive, and even sociopathic ways. As the article notes at the end, the famous case of Phineas Gage and animal studies shows the part of the brain that is affected: the ventromedial prefrontal cortex.

I too believe that many of the people on this forum are witnessing an impairment of this part of the brain, whether temporary, progressive, permanent, or cyclical.

I can't believe sometimes the all-or-nothing mentality I see endorsed here by some longtime members. It damages the integrity of the entire forum by treating it like a cult or a dogma rather than a place to discuss and share ideas.
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MLC is not permanent. It is not a medical diagnosis.

I believe in MLC.

Other diagnoses may in a small number of cases end up being the case but I have not seen one in the 9 years I have been on this site.

Oh I just reread your post and this struck me
Quote
in fact feeds the "midlife crisis" myth


As I said, MLC is NOT a myth. It is very very real and I have seen many spouses return to their marriages...I like discussing MLC on a forum that was created for discussing MLC.
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« Last Edit: January 13, 2019, 05:24:20 PM by xyzcf »
"Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see" Hebrews 11:1

"You enrich my life and are a source of joy and consolation to me. But if I lose you, I will not, I must not spend the rest of my life in unhappiness."

" The truth does not change according to our ability to stomach it". Flannery O'Connor

https://www.midlifecrisismarriageadvocate.com/chapter-contents.html

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I have to agree with xyzcf, in the 8 years I have been on this forum I have never seen a case myself.

They may exist, but they must be really extremely rare.
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A quote from a recovered MLCer: 
"From my experience if my H had let me go a long time ago, and stop pressuring me, begging, and pleading and just let go I possibly would have experienced my awakening sooner than I did."

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I have also never seen a case, be it here or in real life.

MLC is not a myth. If it was, none of us would be here.

Since some of us also had a MLC, I am one of those, and have relatives and friends who had one, we know it is not a myth.

MLC is very real, causes big damages, but it is not permanent.

Can we not get into this again? It has already been determined MLC and bvFTD are not one and the same thing.
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Sometimes good things fall apart so better things can fall together. (Marilyn Monroe)

 

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