> From: "J. R. Bruman" <[log in to unmask]> > Subject: Depression And PD Hi Joe I agree with the general thrust of what you are saying . I often refer to my l-dopa as my happy tablets ( when my dyskinesia is not too bad ) . I have often had too stop my drug holiday because of an overwhelming sense of dread and not because of any physical impairment . I am a dopamine junky and find it very difficult to do without my fix and unfortunately the amount needed increases all the time as the effectiveness decreases . The beggining of dose and end of dose dyskinesia also increase with increase drug dosage . Knowing that I am emotionaly as well as physically dependent contributes to depression . . For example rats, accustomed to getting > nicotine and then deprived of it, worked until the stimulation > intensity reached a certain value known as the threshold value, > that measured the degree of addiction. Nicotine increases the dopamine in the brain as well as depressing the MAO B Over the years, workers > have also learned that a major component of the brain reward > system is a small group of nerve cells that project from the > deep midbrain to a ventral forebrain region called the nucleus > accumbens, and that use dopamine as their chemical messenger. > Enhanced dopamine transmission in this system seems to be > intricately involved with the sensation of pleasure, so it is > sometimes called "the reward pathway". And by analogy, a > similar pleasure pathway is thought to exist in people. > > Recently, workers have found a way to observe the relation of > dopamine to the reward pathway in human subjects. Using > positron emission tomography (PET) scan imaging, and a tracer > that is displaced from receptors by dopamine, they could > map the release of dopamine as a function of the subject's > behavior. The volunteers played a video game while being > scanned, and were offered additional money as a bonus for > "winning" the game. The pleasure of earning the prize was > thus correlated to the release of dopamine. Note, while PWP > have always known that dopamine affects behavior, this is > the first observation of the converse, that behavior affects > dopamine. Might the causes of PD possibly include a behavioral > factor? I have always believed that trauma , both physical and emotional can cause PD . That mental stimulation can inprove PD symptoms has been known about for a long time . There is this character in Dr. Sachs book " The Awackenings" in which one of the PDsufferers is nicknamed "Pele " because with a football he losses a lot of his mobility impairement and can play football . This raises the question that I have been toying with over the last few weeks . Could it be that we have got PD all wrong ? It is not a lack of dopamine that is causing a change in the neural firing pattern . But rather a change in the neural firing pattern using less dopamine circuits . This lessens the dopamine requirement leading to a dieing off dopamine producing cells . Making the brains concentration of dopamine unnaturally high will boost these underused dopamine based neural paths and will tend to normalise normalise the neural firing pattern . ( I am still at the stage of testing this idea with data ) In some ways I feel maybe I was a dopamine junky all my life . I was not into chemical stimulants but rather mental ones . I was fighting off depression with a continual series of new wierd projects that I could get excited about .I fully agree with the idea of a strong connection between mental stimulation , dopamine and depression . > Depression = Lack Of Pleasure = (sometimes) Lack Of Dopamine. > >. The notion might be verified eventually by > collecting a body of data from postmortem examination of > "depressed" PD patients. I am very sceptical of using postmortem examinatios as they do not show the living brain neural firing pattern . At best they show a very conplicated neural circuitry . Without being certain of how the cicuitry works completley, predictions ot outcomes of neural fireing pattern is inpossible . > > Bottom Line, for People With Parkinson's Plus Depression: If > Prozac doesn't work for you, maybe all you need is a bit more > of your usual PD medication. Ask your doctor. Cheers, > Joe You are right but feeding my dopamine habit with more L-dopa increases my dyskinesia .This in itself is very depressing . peace Alastair ( [log in to unmask] )