Posted on 04/18/2011 10:39:20 PM PDT by smokingfrog
There's still no foolproof way to predict who will develop dementia, but brain scientists say they have identified a new clue:
Cluelessness, as in an inability to tell when people are lying or using sarcasm.
A preliminary new study conducted at the University of California at San Francisco suggests that the neurodegenerative process responsible for dementia also causes deterioration of regions of the brain responsible for detecting insincere speech.
"These patients cannot detect lies," study author Dr. Katherine Rankin, of the university's Memory and Aging Center, said in a written statement. "This fact can help them be diagnosed earlier."
It might also help them hold on to their money, researchers say, as the blind faith resulting from dementia can make older people easy marks for online scams and dishonest telemarketers.
For the study, 175 older volunteers - more than half of whom had Alzheimer's disease, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (Lou Gehrig's disease), or some other neurodegenerative disease - watched videos of two people talking. At some points in the videos, one of the people would tell a lie or use sarcasm.
Healthy volunteers had little trouble spotting yerbal and non-verbal cues that indicated insincerity. Not so the volunteers with neurodegenerative disease.
And clueless may not be the only early sign of dementia, researchers say. Adopting a new political affiliation or religion late in life - changes sometimes attributed to a midlife crisis - may actually be the result of brain deterioration that might lead to dementia.
What's the study's take-away message? Older people should simply assume that everyone they talk to is lying.
Just kidding.
(Excerpt) Read more at cbsnews.com ...
So all liberals will have dimentia?
This explains the 40% approval rating for the Liar in Chief.
Do you think they’re kidding?
Yeah. It gets harder when you can't find your glasses and can't tell if their lips are moving.
With the occasional alien hand syndrome things and cluster migraines that only subside when my entire body feels sunburned and my feet go numb... I be rocking and rolling large. Been neurodegenerative for forty years now.
These things are not identifiable, categorized, predicted, prevented or treated. They are realities of human form that simply must be accepted.
There are forms of epilepsy that momentarily present, vanish, and defy any detection method.
I know this to be a fact.. After a dozen cats, dozen mri's, few radial skull x rays... and some rather unpleasant things being stuck down my throat.
You just failed my dementia test.
Bttt.
Ruh roh!
The public exhibition of dementia is a skill not easily acquired.
The public exhibition of dementia is a skill not easily acquired.
It is?
Sarcasm - the last refuge of an empty mind.
.dnatsrednu ton od I
Those who do not get it are not worth bothering with in any case, but when the get irate.. It helps
This bodes ill for my wife. I'm not worried though, because she was always like that.
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