[1trouble]

For anyone who is not as clever as Anjae, Velika and others on here and would be overwhelmed by more scientific books on the subject
I can recommend a really good book which helps you understand how various parts of the brain work in depression and addiction..

Its written by a guy who had depression and went through various addictions to become a developmental psychologist and researcher of neuroscience and he tells his story and in between explains what was happening to his brain and what the various points do...

I found it easy to absorb and see how this relates to the way the brain may work in MLC..

The book is called "Memories of an addicted brain" and its by Marc Lewis

[Anjae]

This is both amazing and scary: https://www.theguardian.com/science/2017/apr/10/scientists-identify-parts-of-brain-involved-in-dreaming - Scientists identify parts of brain involved in dreaming

"What’s more, changes in brain activity have been found to offer clues as to what the dream is about."

[Velika]

This is both amazing and scary: https://www.theguardian.com/science/2017/apr/10/scientists-identify-parts-of-brain-involved-in-dreaming - Scientists identify parts of brain involved in dreaming

"What’s more, changes in brain activity have been found to offer clues as to what the dream is about."

Wow! I love what they wrote about this and consciousness. So interesting too as someone who sometimes feels like someone in MLC is in a "trance."

[Anjae]

It is. MLC can be seen as a sort of "trance".

[xyzcf]

Diabetes, weight can combine to alter brain, study says:

http://www.cnn.com/2017/04/27/health/diabetes-brain-study/index.html
"You can see a person with depression has thinning of the surface of the brain in certain areas, and you go in and do the same study with somebody with diabetes, and they have thinning in the exact same areas,"

This could very well be my husband's "reason"...I have always felt that there is something wrong biochemically in his case.

[1phoenix]

An interesting article:

Testosterone Linked to Snap Judgments, Less Reflection

 By Traci Pedersen
 ~ 2 min read




A new study found that men given doses of testosterone were more likely to rely on snap judgments during a brain-teaser test rather than rely on cognitive reflection; that is, stopping to consider whether their gut reaction to something is correct.

“What we found was the testosterone group was quicker to make snap judgments on brain teasers where your initial guess is usually wrong,” said Dr. Colin Camerer, the Robert Kirby Professor of Behavioral Economics at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech).


 

“The testosterone is either inhibiting the process of mentally checking your work or increasing the intuitive feeling that ‘I’m definitely right.'”

The study involved 243 males who were randomly selected to receive a dose of testosterone gel or placebo gel before taking a cognitive reflection test. A math task was also given to control for participant engagement, motivation level, and basic math skills.

The questions included on the cognitive reflection test were similar to the following: A bat and a ball cost $1.10 in total. The bat costs one dollar more than the ball. How much does the ball cost?

For many people, the first answer that comes to mind is that the ball costs 10 cents, but that answer is incorrect because then the bat would cost only 90 cents more than the ball. The correct answer is that the ball costs five cents and the bat costs $1.05.

A person prone to relying on their gut instincts would be more likely to accept their first answer of 10 cents. However, another person might realize their initial mistake through cognitive reflection and come up with the correct answer.

Participants were given as much time as they needed to complete the questions and were offered one dollar for each correct answer and an additional tow dollars if they answered all the questions correctly.


 

The results show that the group that received testosterone scored significantly lower than the group that received the placebo, on average answering 20 percent fewer questions correctly.

The men given testosterone also “gave incorrect answers more quickly, and correct answers more slowly than the placebo group,” the authors write. The same effect was not seen in the results of the basic math tests administered to both groups.

The researchers believe that this phenomenon can be linked to testosterone’s effect of increasing confidence in humans. Testosterone is thought to generally enhance the male drive for social status, and recent studies have shown that confidence enhances status.

“We think it works through confidence enhancement. If you’re more confident, you’ll feel like you’re right and will not have enough self-doubt to correct mistakes,” Camerer says.

Camerer says the new findings raise questions about the potential pitfalls of the growing testosterone-replacement therapy industry, which mainly targets the declining sex drive experienced by many middle-aged men.

“If men want more testosterone to increase sex drive, are there other effects? Do these men become too mentally bold and thinking they know things they don’t?”

The study was conducted by researchers from Caltech, the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, Western University of Health Sciences and ZRT Laboratory in Oregon, and is published in the journal Psychological Science

[Velika]

Interesting article on how traumatic memories hidden in the brain are more likely to be accessed when the brain is in that same state:

https://news.northwestern.edu/stories/2015/08/traumatic-memories-hide-retrieve-them

My MLCer was on a benzodiazepine med when he started MLC, as well as an SSRI -- interesting in the context of this article.

[Not Applicable]

Thank you for that, Velika. That really validates what I suspected. In my H's case, the "drug" that is inducing this is his mother. I think moving in with her brought back memories of his father's abuse.

It also jives with the theory mentioned in this article:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2265099/

Considerable work has addressed the variety of cues available at the time of memory testing and how these cues affect retrieval success. The principle of encoding specificity asserts that a cue to retrieval will be more effective if it recapitulates some aspect of the encoding of that memory (Tulving & Thomson, 1973). For example, if the word palm is learned in the context of a “palm tree,” the word hand will be less effective as a retrieval cue than a word that invokes the image of a tree.

How do you think the drugs your husband were on influenced him? This is what I don't get.

[1trouble]

Interesting article on how traumatic memories hidden in the brain are more likely to be accessed when the brain is in that same state:

https://news.northwestern.edu/stories/2015/08/traumatic-memories-hide-retrieve-them

My MLCer was on a benzodiazepine med when he started MLC, as well as an SSRI -- interesting in the context of this article.

Velika  its interesting you say your H was on an SSRI, the private investigator I hired to find out who OW was at the beginning of this also had a MLC and he is now on SSRI's and recommended them.
But shortly after I spoke to him about his MLC, I also read a couple of stories on here where SSRI's actually made the MLC worse.

I am no scientist but I wonder if, there is a 'wrong time' for someone to be given an SSRI if in crisis?.
If its possible that MLC is a chemical imbalance I wonder if SSRI's given at the point where the MLC'er has found an AP might add to the high.....
is it possible your H's increase in irrational behaviour got worse when taking these drugs?

Is he still on them?

The PI only started taking them when he was sectioned toward the end of his crisis and was still on them when I spoke to him in Nov 15 (which was about 5 years after his crisis).

[Velika]

1T, he was put on an SSRI (Paxil) off label about six months prior to the crisis, by a general practitioner and to treat IBS.

My dad was going through intense cancer treatments during this time so it is likely I missed changes to his behavior. However, in retrospect I now see he developed debilitating migraines during this time and began to exhibit some out-of-character behavior.

To be honest, as soon as he bomb dropped me the SSRI was my first thought. I read that an SSRI can trigger bipolar and family history of bipolar is a contraindication.

My former SIL also had a MLC. I talked to her ex and he said it also kicked off with an atypical reaction to an ssri (prescribed for postpartum depression and SAD) and that she has been told that she possibly has bipolar. My former FIL also told me that she had suspected bipolar.

I now think that my H had depression for at least a few years if not decades prior to MLC, and that the SSRI created a eurphoric mania that has tipped into mixed mania/cyclothemia that he cannot "crash" from.

He claims he is not taking the SSRI anymore but has lied about this in the past. He also told me that he is taking a low dose, but a neurologist told me it was quite high and that he should not be taking it with a benzodiazepine, which he only takes on occasion.

Migraines are also thought to be a symptom of bipolar. It is my theory that the very extreme MLCers have something that is or is close to bipolar or cyclothemia. I think the ones who "wallow" have more clarity and chance to recover because their depression tends to be unipolar. They may be very down, but they feel less euphoria and rage that tend to create additional problems and drive their destructive behaviors.