February 17, 2010 – 12:33 pm
PD is a complex creature and difficult to understand. One way to overcome this problem is by using analogies to make it comprehensible. If a picture is worth a thousand words, then a good analogy is just as valuable. One major feature of YOPD is the struggle to maintain homeostasis, or balance, in the mind [...]
November 12, 2009 – 2:29 pm
(A Link to Part 1) In Parkinson’s Disease, age of onset of symptoms provides a dividing line of sorts between two subgroups. If symptoms first appear after the approximate age of sixty, then the influences of age and the insults that come with it are the predominant factors. generating a destructive neuroinflammatory response including the [...]
October 18, 2009 – 12:26 pm
In light of the work showing a link between the flu and PD, everyone should run out and get a flu shot, right? Wrong! And maybe a very big wrong at that. As outlined elsewhere on this site, the microglia are part of the innate, hardwired defense of your brain. They hold the line while [...]
September 15, 2009 – 7:45 pm
Over the last few weeks it has been somewhat like the clouds have parted and a new understanding of Parkinson’s Disease has emerged. While a great deal of research on the role of inflammation has long been available, it has been one of a number of possible explanations. It has now moved from the “possible” [...]
September 8, 2009 – 10:11 pm
Today’s London “Telegraph” reported on a study in the current issue of the journal “Neurology” that pretty much seals the case for neuroinflammation as causal in both Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s Diseases. Beginning with a group of 222 AD patients with an average age of 83, they obtained baseline data via blood work and cognitive testing. [...]
August 27, 2009 – 11:09 pm
Without a cause or defined course of progression for Parkinson’s Disease, it has been extremely difficult to even offer anything beyond levodopa, itself a mixed blessing. I am convinced that there is no “magic bullet”, at least not soon, because there is no single cause. This may eventually yield to the idea of treatment with [...]
August 17, 2009 – 3:06 am
. Activated microglia. Alpha-synuclein aggregation. Neuronal loss in the SN. Long term persistence of effect. There is at least one other known trigger for a near identical innate immune response. That is the effect of fetal exposure to the endotoxin lipopolysaccharide (LPS) as shown in the following reports: . 1: Exp Neurol. 2006 Jun;199(2):499-512. Epub [...]
August 13, 2009 – 2:50 am
.Copyright 2009 by Parkinsonsonline.org and blogged on A Matter of Balance. May be distributed freely for non-commercial use so long as credit is maintained. . A team from St. Judes in Memphis led by Richard J. Smeyne, this week published a report entitled . “Highly pathogenic H5N1 influenza virus can enter the central nervous system [...]