NeuroPsych Results

I have been fearing this moment for a week. I almost blogged this morning about how nervous I was, but decided to wait and get the actual facts. The following reflects quotes from Dr. Mary Pepping at the UofW who ran my tests and interpreted the results. I’ll have my copy of them in about 2 weeks.

When I walked in, Dr. Pepping was smiling and extraordinarily friendly. “This,” I thought to myself, “bodes well. Unless she does that when she gives people bad news! Ut-oh!”

It turned out there was Good News/Bad News and the just ... unusual

Good News:
"These are phenomenal results. In 25 years I've never seen results this consistent in so many categories. Even in your lowest categories, you scored in the Superior range". There turned out to be one exception to this on the mental tests. Regardless, this is the nicest thing anyone has said to me in ages, at least about my mentation.

We went through each set of results, one-by-one. Ironically, some of the ones I thought I did the poorest on, I did very well. Generally at this end of the spectrum, they rate results in several categories according to how many standard deviations above the norm they are; normal, bright, very bright, superior and very superior (I know, it’s grammatically wrong to have a very superior category, but that’s what they use).

Digits: 9 forward, 7 backwards. Very Superior The average is 5 forward 4 back.
Word Pair Lists: Very Superior. 10 correct pairs in 4 tries on recall after 30 minutes. Average: 5 in 4 tries. I mentioned that I thought I blew this one. "No, it's designed to be unmemorizable. The word pairs were chosen to they have little or nor relationship to each other without you inventing you're own system. It's also interesting that you had no false positives, i.e. you didn't identify any words that weren't there when you were quizzed and got all 12."
Spatial Reasoning: Perfect scores.
Tactile and kinetic reasoning, 1 perfect score, 1 in the very superior range.
Mathematical reasoning: Almost perfect. "You made one error where, although you got the right answer, you didn't reduce the fraction far enough". damn!
Verbal fluency: Superior
Executive Tests (cards and the "diamond dogs" machine). Very Superior. "almost perfect". I was right about the meta-rule, but, "it's designed not to be detectable by the subject. It's unusual for you to have noticed it at all."
Abstract Reasoning: Very Superior
Determination and Mental energy (apparently some of the tests, like the "diamond dog" one, can test how hard you are actually trying to solve them): Very Superior.
MMPI-2: Normal personality (notes below)

Conclusion: "If you have a cognitive deficit, it's coming down from such a level that these tests can't detect it." My mind is fine, including to my surprise, my short term memory. My general IQ is "north of 160"

Bad News:
The neurology tests (finger movement, eye movement), were not as good. My right hand, which should be the stronger of the two, was noticeably weaker. "It looks like, in the absence of other factors affecting the peripheral nerves, that there is motor neuron damage". This supports the MS or ALS theories, but tends to reduce (but not eliminate) the Huntington’s/Cerebral Ataxia theory.

Unusual: My answers to the story questions and interpreting a to a set of general facts was, "not wrong, everything made sense, just not what we were expecting. You only got in the 50th percentile on the stories. Normal, but odd given the high scores everywhere else. It's the biggest factor bringing your IQ down" Down to the 4 sigma level that is. It's weird that I scored this low on the inference tests since I would have thought I would do well, being fairly based on intuition and inductive (vs. deductive) logic.

Personality: Normal, but “you are only a hair over the extrovert line. This gives you a flexible set of tools for dealing with different social situations." Psychosis, no. Sociopathy, no, Dissociative disorders, no, Neuroses, no. "There is some indication you are worried about your physical health and, while not nowhere near clinically depressed, this does seem to have you upset."

Duh!

"You have the kind of personality that generally handles stress well until, suddenly it doesn't, at which point you probably obsess or collapse." I tend to collapse. Ask any of my friends from grad school who watched me after my divorce. Definitely a non-linear collapse.

"You're generally self-critical, self-effacing and tend not to speak your mind even when you know others are wrong or misguided". True, at least the last part.

Conclusion: I'm doing okay cognitively. I was flattered by her closing remark, "I really have never seen scores this consistently high across so many domains. You should be prouder of yourself then you actually are."

awwww....

So it really is motor neurons and not something which will take my mind. I can't tell you how relieved I am.
And, the quotes are all real. I am flattered (and more than a little uncomfortable) by the results.