[Velika]

Interesting discussion!

MBIB I agree with you. This is an online forum, and this thread is about biochemistry and brain research. If there are peer reviewed articles on this as pertains to MLC, midlife depression, or other symptoms often described by LBS I would love to read them and hope someone could post.

No one here is posting about how to perform amateur exploratory brain surgery on MLCer using simple tools at home. We are just sharing articles of interest, maybe that list some symptoms that sound similar to MLC, maybe just wondering. These are conversations academics, professionals, friends have informally all the time about all sorts of topics. We are just having a discussion, right, but we don't live close to one another and can't meet at a cafe to discuss/joke/ask questions so we do it here. I'm not sure it matters if these discussions end up going down the wrong road or taking a tangent. MLC is horrible but it is also pretty fascinating.

I agree that MLC is an umbrella term. However, I am only one year in and I can see that it is possible to predict behavior and even language patterns, at least among certain subsets of MLCers. Since the onset is apparently so sudden in these cases, it makes sense to want to figure out which region of the brain might be affected.

I think there is a taboo regarding MLC. It is that women in particular are often left with a stigma that their husband "left them for someone else." The stereotype of MLC is that the husband is a silver-haired man in his fifties driving a nice convertible next to a beautiful younger woman. This simple stereotype helps lend to the notion that the man is acting in a way that is harmless, in his own interests, or at least vaguely comical. It makes the wife feel ashamed, not the husband. The stereotype normalizes his behavior and trivializes the impact.

But when we share our stories, we help explain that not only is this not what has happened, there is more to the story. We help show that the shame of abandonment and abuse belongs to the husband, not the wife. We show that the abandonment is just one aspect of a series of behavior changes, sometimes radical and sudden.

The silver-haired man has an empty look in his eye and is behaving erratically at home and at work. His children haven't seen him for weeks, and he has heaped emotional abuse on his wife and blamed her that he has left the family. The woman next to him is his age, twice divorced, and is taking selfies so that the wife (or one of her kids) might see them together on social media. He used his youngest child's college fund to pay for the car. Just one year earlier he was a happy, devoted family man who had regularly told his wife how much he loved her. Almost overnight he seemed to despise her. He has lost most of his friends due to how he has treated his family. He avoids many of the people he used to love.

I am someone who was so bewildered by MLC I told a lot of people about what was going on, hoping to meet someone who had a similar experience. Because I explained in detail what was happening, my friends and family understood that this was not a normal situation or breakup and no one treated it as such. I think it is sad for MLCers that this is not discussed more openly. Maybe some would be encouraged to seek help if it were.

[Anjae]

Several of the last posts on this thread were moved to the Discussion thread: http://mlcforum.theherosspouse.com/index.php?topic=7571.0

They were not about neuroscience, but about MLC. Please be so kind to continue the discussion there. Thank you.

[kikki]

Some interesting findings on depression and forward thinking impairment
http://www.radionz.co.nz/national/programmes/ninetonoon/audio/201811737/depression-impairs-forward-thinking

[Mermaid]

Very interesting, Kikki! Thanks for this!

[Anjae]

Interesting, but we had already figured that out, haven't we?  In case anyone is interested, here is a link for the several types of memory and the brain parts used by each http://www.human-memory.net/brain_parts.html

This one is about a different type of neuroscience finding. It has to do with restoring feelings and movements to paraplegic patients They did with "exoskeleton, sessions using virtual reality (VR) technology and a non-invasive system that links the brain with a computer."

It is truly amazing.

https://www.theguardian.com/science/2016/aug/11/brain-training-technique-restores-feeling-and-movement-to-paraplegics-virtual-reality

The article also refers other things that are being tried for the same purpose "The study parallels other approaches to spinal cord injury: there are hopes of stem cell therapy that could make possible natural repairs to the nervous system, and of electronic implants that might bypass a spinal cord injury to transmit the brain’s message to the muscles."

I'm truly looking forward for it to become as common and available as paracetamol. Not exactly the same thing, but, still, it looks more and more a reality. 

[kikki]

Interesting, but we had already figured that out, haven't we? 

Posted the link because some people may prefer to listen rather than read.   

[Velika]

I know I'm really going for the win on the most theories from widest variety of disciplines on Hero's Spouse, but I have yet another kind of tangential and half-baked one based on something I saw on a nature documentary with my son.

Okay so here we go — this is not exactly neurology but seeing as there is no zoology thread on Hero's Spouse ...

Yesterday my son and I were watching a documentary on African elephants where there was a description of musth, a kind of frenzied state in which a male elephant becomes violent and irrational due to radically increased testosterone (40 to 60 percent) levels. Apparently when this occurs in captivity it can be so dangerous that afflicted elephants are often isolated and even tranquilized.

I covered this in my own thread as well, but I wonder if MLC could be in some way a type of human musth. One of the theories of musth is that it strikes when there is a change to the dominance order of the herd. I think in some ways this can be seen in MLC, where some men experience it when they have reduced status and other men when they have increased. It also seems to strike when someone has died; again, change to order of herd. It is not well understood how this is an adaptive quality or what the function/purpose is.

Here are the symptoms of musth. Does this sound familiar?

• autistic behaviour
• aggressive outbursts when the bull feels disturbed
• does not tolerate any noise and sudden movements
• does in everyday contact hardly react to familiar commands of the keeper
• tries to attack even familiar elephants and humans

It is also linked to sexual arousal/dominance establishment.

I know this does nothing to help my situation but I did find it thought provoking. It really resonated! Sadly, there is no mahout to tie my MLC husband to a tree, however.

[Shocked]

Interesting read! I would have thought it would be the decrease in testosterone. My H's boss is younger than him. I also think his parents aging and starting to be less responsible for their actions affected him. As if if he acted younger it would stop their aging. Or he wants to reenact his teenage years either because they were good or because he feels he miss out on something.  I think mostly because he's pouting and feels he was cheated out of something. Hence the screw everyone attitude!!

[Mermaid]

I know this does nothing to help my situation but I did find it thought provoking. It really resonated! Sadly, there is no mahout to tie my MLC husband to a tree, however.

Ha ha! Sounds like a good idea and a cure!!!

More seriously... although humans don't have truly instinctive behaviours, there's no reason why testosterone changes might not play a part in some of these MLCers. Most likely a drop in hormone levels. But some have had it tested, and there's been no change, so certainly not true for all.

[Velika]

I wrote about this elsewhere, but has anyone noted (anecdotally or in research) a connection between dementia, MLC, and Alzheimer's?

A neighbor's mother had pretty severe MLC (divorce, pregnancy, much younger man). He told me she ended up having Alzheimer's.

If this is biochemical I'm thinking it takes a huge toll on the brain, but I could be wrong.