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Sonia Nielsen asks one of the most common and yet most difficult to answer questions : "Why Me". This has been the subject of many research efforts, and is still not understood. That doesn't mean that we should not have some theories however, so here are my ideas: 1/ It is my understanding from researchers at our local University of Nottingham, Queen's Medical Centre that they see two groups: group 1 is ordinary non-PWPs and they show no tendency to loss of dopamine function as they get older. Group 2/ is people with various degrees of PD, and they show of course, heavy loss of dopamine function. These findings were made using a new extremely sensitive Scanner which they have helped to develop. The point is that we PD sufferers are not the tail-end of a wide distribution of dopamine activity in the general populace; we are in a totally different category. 2/ One fairly common thread which you will hear when this subject discussed is that the person suffered some form of stressful experience prior to the appearance of PD symptoms. A cynic might say that millions of people endure stressful situations without developing Parkinson's; what makes us different? In my view this happens because the person already had lost a large proportion of dopamine-producing cells (It is known that you must lose between 80% and 90% of these cells before PD symptoms become evident). The stress then acts as the final straw which takes us beyond the 80% loss figure and there go the symptoms. One possible cause could be the recent finding that stress seriously weakens the ability of the blood-brain barrier to screen out harmful substances and prevent them coming into contact with the brain. So, in a sense, the stress did 'cause' the PD, but something much more powerful must have happened before that for us to be anywhere near the 80% to 90% loss of Dopamine production capacity, and THAT is the big unknown. The informed opinion apparently is focussed on genetic factors, maybe not damaged genes, but the particular relationships of several genes which could, in certain combinations render a person more susceptible to for instance a pesticide. Such a pesticide would have not the slightest effect on a normal person, making detection of the cause almost impossible. I suspect that it will be a long time before the whole story is untangled. Fortunately there are a lot of ideas currently being tested which do not depend on such an understanding, but which effectively attempt to replace or rebuild the missing capacity, in the reasonable hope that the patient will have adequate supplies of Dopamine for the rest of his or her life. Regards -- Brian Collins <[log in to unmask]>