Rankin and her team focused on a a specific type of neurodegenerative disease called frontotemporal dementia, or FTD, a group of disorders in which patients can experience behavioral symptoms such as personality changes, a loss of inhibition and social tact as well as language difficulties, such as an inability to understand words.

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Some straight spouses have spoken of deep changes to their personality or habits: Developing tastes for foods they never liked before or losing interest in formerly favorite activities.

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The focus recently has been on trying to pin down the details of the neutrino's split personality: How far it travels before it changes from one type into another, and which types change into which and with what frequency.

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