Impaired social cognition in multiple sclerosis

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23315621

Oh goodie.

As if it weren't enough that our bodies turn on us and make us dependent, and our minds lose things and start storing socks in the freezer and ice cream in the hall cupboard, it appears that we lose the ability to interact appropriately with the people around us, often the very people we need to keep us from falling apart.

This study looked at how people with MS responded to a film of four people sitting around a dinner table having a discussion. At various points in the movie, it is stopped and the patient is asked to identify the emotion being expressed by the person at the table.

Apparently we don't do so well at that.

Like autistic people...we seem to lose the ability to read people's faces appropriately, which might account for a few mixed experiences I've had lately.

Of course, this study also gives us an excuse for misunderstanding people. We can just trot out the statement, "Remember - we MSers fail the MASC! You have to tell me what you are thinking!"

Finally, a reason to have real discussions, instead of being expected to read minds.

Huzzah!

How exciting the brain...

I always was fascinated by the brain. I remember in grade 12 Biology, I dissected a fetal pig. The day I cut into the head I felt such reverence. Already I was totally awed by how well-arranged the body was internally, but the brain, even the fetal pig brain, was so humbling.
It seems oddly appropriate that the disease I got is all about the brain. It would be so boring to have a sore leg or something. Instead I get to wallow is the multiple glories of a magnificent system going awry.
"It is the most mysterious part of the human body, and yet it dominates how we live our adult lives"
TED remix about the brain

Finding my way

One gift this MS has given me is the need to completely redesign my life. And there are certain things I feel I need to do and lots I don’t. It’s an interesting process.

Met up with my health service manager friends yesterday and ended up at the end with two of them – one, the girl I wanted to work for, who is lefty trendy live for the moment, and the other, who is career driven and proud of it. It was like seeing myself split, and there I was, in transition between the two of them, moving from one to the other.

I was intensely grateful to see my two halves outlined in this way, looking at them both, turning the ideas of them both over in my hands, seeing the benefits of both, and then realizing my strongest draw was to the lefty trendy creative side, that it always has been and that it is a relief to have the divine push to go there. I am pretty dim. All of my life I have worked so hard at things that don’t come naturally to me, and discounted the things that do. Finally my body just had to up and quit to put me where I need to be.