"michel.guillaume" <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

<<I am 49 years old French man. I belong to your company since 1978.
I have been playing with Modopar (Sinemet) for more than 14 years.
Scientist involved with signal processing, I try to understand the
effects of the medication on my brain. (Modopar is the only one
medication I am taking now and using only one chemical makes the study
simpler).
Assuming dopamine to be a neurotransmitter, the first consequence to be
expected, would be to change the conditions of propagation of
information
into the neuronal network of my brain. Then dopamine modifies the way in
which proprioception information is processed in order to allow the CNS
(Central Nervous System) to organize  the movements.
Up to now it seems to me that the time at which I produce a variation of
the level of dopamine into my CNS is at least as important than the
quantity of dopa  that I put in. i.e. : the same quantity of dopa would
be very efficient at given hour but would have a very negative effect if
I take it  20 minutes before or after the right time.
It seems to me that my CNS needs Dopa for 20 minutes but would be glad
not to have so much of it during the following 20 minutes. This 40
minutes cycle is very stable.
Is there anybody on the NET that would try to understand PD using that
kind of logic?
Michael Edouard Guillaume (MEG)>>>>

my seeking to understand has led me to gather some of the
pharmacokinetics information relevant to levodopa and the various forms
and formulas manufactured. My chemical engineering education landed me
an interview with the Wm. S. Merrill ethical pharmaceuticals
manufacturing company in Cincinnati, Ohio in 1958 when I was finishing
my BS ChemicalEngineering curriculum from the Missouri School of Mines
and metallurgy (now Univ of Mo. at Rolla). I did not take employment
there, but did get a thorough tour of the company with all the chemical
and quality control equipments and procedures. I also worked some with a
Pharmacy Professor, Dale Wurster, who was employed by the Naval Weapons
Center, China Lake, California where I spent 30 years as a "rocket
scientist". Doctor Wurster was a marvelous man. His patent on Vitamin D
in milk was his endowment to the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation.

the neurotransmitter dopamine is functional in many loci throughout the
body including nearly all the peripheral neural networks as well as the
brain with  the large percentage of messaging in the striatal portion of
the CNS. It appears that there are D-1, D-2, ... sites of Dopamine
responsive neurotransmitters. The signal circuitry is much more
interconnected than digital computers networks. It seems to be that the
brain might be more like the internet would be if all the individual net
nodes and intranets and individual computers were also connected to each
other with thousands of interconnectons all on-line all the time.  Add
to that "picture" the control centers being able to monitor all the
machinery and vehicles and telephones et cetera by means of conscious
cognitive operators who kept the focus on "important" functions of the
human activities on the planet. These controllers would be the
substancia nigra pars compacta portion of the analogous network above.
their reduction in ability to monitor the noise level when the brain
wants to direct the body to perform movements such as typing would not
function to shut down the shiver (tremor) noise circuits that are not
controlled by the persons conscious monitoring. The analogy is not
well-defined - we have sub-conscious autonomic and sympathetic neural
networks plus the habitual learned motor codes that normally provide our
mental and physical abilities due to our training and learning
accumulated over our lifetime. Loss of some portions of any and all of
these learned networks and their functionalities and interconnections
programs and sub-programs are lost without significant overall
functional loss but at some degree of loss, we lose noticeably.  Our
physical fine tuning is in partnership with our mental networking
capabilities.The mechanisms of memory may include chemical codes,
frequency matchings, and the type of neurotransmitter must make some
difference.

Evolving these brains has the marvelous chemistry and physics of
biological evolving which is the pattern that the cell that becomes the
one of us (or twins or triplets) using the self-forming replication of
cells growing and dividing to form a baby with it's potential. We have
learned a little about how to nourish and understand our gift of
existence from posterity.

perhaps my conjecturing will help you and others to seek to study the
parts of the puzzle that are in the several sub-pages on medication and
pharmacokinetics on my homepage.  The right amount of medication is
enough to meet my needs satisficing but not optimizing. The neurotrophic
factors might allow much improvement if we - i - manage my health well
enough to maintain a spunky will to live well by eating well and caring
for my self - with the increasingly adult caring for my self recognizing
that i am a part of the species and the only conscious self-aware
life-form i (we) have evidence exists.  the life forms on this planet
may be the only living beings in the cosmos? i am a container for many
sub-animals and bacteria, et cetera that co-exist as long as i eat,
drink and function. the plant and animal  matter that i consume is
partially forming me and heating me and healing or poisoning me. i
succeed in achieving excellence, joy, euphoria, et cetera or i do not.
knoledge is necesssary using our cognition to focus on what is ailing or
failing and finding the remedy is a personal choice to some extent.

hope you who read all this are not unhappy you did so.
--
ron      1936, dz PD 1984  Ridgecrest, California
Ronald F. Vetter <[log in to unmask]>
http://www.ridgecrest.ca.us/~rfvetter