 |
 |
hi linda waaay back on Sun, 29 Mar 1998 07:10:21 -0500 you wrote: > I've read a number of articles on the "Parkinson's personality," >which has been described as both "industrious, rigidly moral, >stoic, serious and nonimpulsive," by researchers, and >"highly intelligent, successful, responsible, conscientious, >hard-working, and law abiding," by the wife of a Parkinson patient - >take your pick! beauty is in the eye of the beholder we see what we want to see or what we have learned to expect to see >... "Dopamine-related personality traits in Parkinson's disease" >by M.A. Menza, et.al. Neurology, 1993 Mar; 43 (3 Pt.1): 505-8. >...to test the hypothesis that these personality traits are behavioral >manifestations of damaged dopaminergic pleasure and reward systems. >We found significantly less of a group of traits called "novelty seeking" >in PD patients compared with matched medical controls. i wonder if there is a risk of the theory seeking its own valildation unless the studies are 'double blind' i wonder if 'double blind' is even possible in a studies like these i wonder if gender had an effect on the study results or whether the test subjects were all male as has been frequently the case >Patients with low novelty seeking are described as being >reflective, rigid, stoic, slow-tempered, frugal, orderly and persistent, >characteristics similar to those in the clinical description of PD patients. gosh, some of these adjectives sound so 'loaded' with the clinician's [or the test creator's] opinion/filters based on visual cues only with no true understanding/cognition of the pd patient's physical manifestation of symptoms 'stoic'? 'persistent'? 'slow-tempered'? hmmm, but then again, maybe my own 'filters' are getting in the way... >...But I think this research raises some interesting questions: >... could some of us have lower dopamine levels from birth on, >and then be more likely to develop these personality traits? >...are those individuals at a greater risk of developing PD later on? great questions >If the PD personality as described above, is indeed more prevalent >among us as a group - could that be one of the reasons we have >been "Invisible" for so long? it certainly is possible another factor could be our society's tragic fascination with perfection/status [don't reveal any sign of 'weakness'] and all or nothing thinking [if it's not 'perfect', it's no good] however, we seem to be learning slowly but surely that there are more shades of grey than there are of black and white and that you don't get rid of the car because the ashtrays are full your cyber-sibling in wondering janet janet paterson 51-10 / sinemet-selegiline-prozac almonte-ontario-canada / [log in to unmask]