This article, I wrote it around 5 years ago on the time I finished an elective extensive neuroscience course in my university (the neuroscience class brought me new conclusions on how to explain things more extensively). A lot of the ideas, like MBTI, which I mention briefly, I do not support anymore (you can probably tell after how defensive I am on the amount of articles on the issues of the split of work and life). But nonetheless, since many people have done that test, it is more easier to understand what "region of stronger consciousness" people live around.
Bellow is a presentation (which I think it articulates fine) and a FAQS (which I think I should have to revise it whenever I have the time) about Parkinson Disease. I have past personal experience about Parkinson Disease (no, I do not have any mental disease so far yet) for extensive amounts of years and I know how medications and drugs interact with it.
I think it easy to find the references (most of the sources are from Lane Friesen). I will have to look where I got the references, although my presentation is almost a "word by word" and a lot of paraphrasing from me as a narrator. Please do not post this flash file on another site or refer it as your work. I may have plans on sharing this presentation on some flash portals, such as Newgrounds later on.
Click here to see the presentation
Summary & FAQS of Parkinson Disease in 5 minutes Presentation
Exhorter Strategy, also referred to as "dopaminergic" strategy (because it uses dopamine cells) is the strategy that creates hope (also named as "motivation"). In the end of that hope, you receive a mood that depends whether you were rewarded or punished from the nature of states outcome. If you are rewarded, your serotonin cells will increase and give you high self esteem. Otherwise, your serotonin cells will decrease and give you low self esteem. This is the "seretonergic" strategy, also referred to as Contributor Strategy. Although neurology does not have enough conclusive evidence, there is a close relationship with Contributor Stategy and Exhorter Strategy in our nervous system, in such a way, that both have a "give and take". In other words, they both rely on each other, and it is not uncommon of a relationship (in terms of marriage) between a conscious Exhorter person and a conscious Contributor person to exist. In order for you to people understand the very important applications of Contributor Strategy, my next small work will be "Low self esteem in 5 minutes" which explains how Contributor strategy is the culprit behind low esteem. With those 2 presentations, I will create my last small work called "Motivation and Esteem Linked in 5 minutes", showing the domino effect of a depressing mood creates low self esteem (due to the decreasing cells of serotonin), which can lead to lack of motivation (decrease of dopamine cells). Also the same is true on the other side of the spectrum. Lack of motivation (decrease of dopamine cells) can indeed lead to no opportunities to generate a positive mood (decrease in seretonin cells). Although depression falls on serotonergic strategy, you can see indeed how it plays as a big factor ( a domino effect) on the exhorter strategy (resulting in reducing its dopamine cells). This is one of the main factors for the idiopathetic Parkinson Disease. There are many other factors, still unkown, for the purposes that can generate idiopathetic Parkinson Disease. Many related motor functions, from psychological behaviors (apathy and depression) to physical symptoms (sweating and dysfunction of the smell senses) are the early signs that show the loss of dopaminergic neurons. Here we focus on the psychological behaviors, especially on depression.
Seretonin, Dopamine, what the hell are all these?
They are special chemicals, and are found in the brain. In neurology, they are called biogenic amine modulatory neurotransmitters. Neurotransmitters means that these chemicals move from one neuron of the brain to the other. Modulatory is their function, which is to adjust the neuron in a specific way. Research has found that some of them a have a high degree associated with a specific behavior. Dopamine is said to be the source of motivation and Seretonin the source of mood. It is not unlikely for people taking these chemicals in "pills" if they have a low concentration of these chemicals from what the average has to be in order to bring a "balance".
For instance, Fluoxetine, also called as Prozac or Sarafem, is an SSRI. Selective Seretonin reuptake inhibitor (SSRI) means that when it releases seretonin to the neuron, it doesn't take them back (reuptake), making the neurons have more seretonin than the average they should have. However, these drugs, although selled on the market, have long term risks of addiction and vulnerability in the physical structure of the neurons: Less receptors in the neuron are produced for neurotransmission and become less sensitive to the chemical seretonin in order to bring homeostasis. As more receptors are produced and seretonin becomes less sensitive, the user will require a higher dose of the medication and is physical dependent on it in the long term. Although this has not been proven yet and it may not be the case, it has been proven that chemical imbalances exist in chemicals such as cocaine. In the case the chemical imbalances of Prozac is found to be low, they may be less self dependend on it and they do not require to increase their dose.
There are other neurotransmitters that have different functions. Excitatory neurotransmitters are to "wake up" a neuron while inhibitory neurotransmiters to "turn the power off" for a neuron.
We know what Parkinson Disease is. It comes because you are a pathetic person. You don't need to explain it again.
False on half of the cases. It is true that Parkinson disease can be created if you are pathetic, that is, you have lack of motivation to do anything in life. The reason of this presentation is to show that parkinson disease can be created also through other forms, such as depression. Many emotional people who do not have a healthy psychological life and people who have low self esteem are very susceptible to Parkinson Disease because these individuals have a high degree of depression in their life.
Even if the effects of depression in the reduction of dopamine cells is not as strong as "lack of motivation" (Although have not found any conclusive evidence yet, but some may argue that you loose more dopamine cells if you are pathetic, as that is a direct hit rather than a domino effect), in our life we are most encountered with our time with depression rather than being pathetic.
Many people think that those who got idiopathetic Parkinson Disease was because they were pathetic. And many people believe that their offspring can have a possible outcome of a pathetic behavior also. Although this is true, most of the time it can be from a person who lived with depression. In other words, the source of their pathetic behavior can be not created by the will of the individual, but due to their depression. They still have the motivation to do something in their life, but their depression can hit them to try "less harder" and "less harder" where in the end they "do nothing".
What do you mean Conscious? What is Conscious Exhorter Strategy? What if I am not Conscious Exhorter Strategy?
Conscious means a high level of preference on it. If you have taken the MBTI, you know that your 4 letter word personallity is the result of your preference. That MBTI personallity is the one that you are conscious on. The other MBTI personallities are the subconscious ones. Lets say you are an INFP. If you are INFP, that means you are conscious in INFP but subconscious on other personalities, such as ENTP. Subconscious does not mean that you do not have it, it means you less use it or have control over it. You learned on MBTI that learning your weaknesses, the ones that are subconscious to you, are important to tackle in order to have a healthy lifestyle. In the same way, if you are subconscious in Exhorter Strategy, that means that you don't use it a lot as your preference, but have seen other people using it and it feels alienated to you. However, that does not mean you should ignore it. Actually, the ones who are the less likely to have Parkinson Disease are the ones that are Conscious in Exhorter cause they have complete control over it. It is more likely those who are subconscious in Exhorter Strategy to be very careful of this disease, cause you have harder time monitoring and controlling this strategy, the same way when you try dealing other MBTI personallity types. Even if a conscious Exhorter strategy gets Parkinson disease, the effects of the disease are lighter than the ones who is subconscious in Exhorter strategy because it has more control to motivate himself.
If you haven't done an MBTI test, please do, it is pretty entertaining to say the least. You can surf on a search engine about "MBTI tests" and the "theory of MBTI" as keywords. At least, by doing the test and understanding its theory behind it, you will grasp what conscious and subconscious means.
What do you mean idiopathetic Parkinson Disease? Why not just say Parkinson disease?
There is a huge difference between saying "idiopathetic Parkinson Disease" and just "secondary Parkinson Disease". When a doctor, specialized in neurology, tries to diagnose the patient's Parkinson Disease, it tries to determine whether it was idiopathetic or not. Idiopathetic. also referred to as idiopathic, means the cause is uknown and it cannot be explained scientifically.
Secondary parkinson disease comes from very complex reasons that can be proven scientifically. It can be the cause of a gene that reduces dopamine cells very rapidly (it can be the weird reason Parkinson Disease can come to people at their 20s) . It can be from use of drugs that create chemical imbalances. It can be from the toxicity of the environment or a particular head trauma. Genetic or a medical disorder can be a very likely cause of the disease. The creation of dopamine is quite complex and it is done before sending it. Tyrosine and Tyrosine Hydroxylase form L-Dihydrohyphenylalanine, also called as dopa. Dopa decarboxylase wih dopa create dopamine. Anything can go wrong from the creation of dopamine, to the infrastructure for sending the dopamine to the final destination. Because dopa decarboxylase is abundant in the brain, the pills that are given to patients contain "Dopa" instead of "Dopamine" because it is expected that a lot of dopa decarboxylase will still be there for the patients to produce Dopamine.
However, psychological reasons are usually referred to as idiopathic. Note, however, that an idiopathic disease does not mean it is always a psychological reason, but it can be anything that science can not grasp its hands. Many years ago, the disease was always referred to as idiopathic, but with technology and innovations, they can now tell at least whether the disease comes from genetics or through the environment and can label it as "secondary Parkinson Disease".
What is the likelihood of Parkinson Disease?
Between 15 and 20 per cent of Parkinson's patients have a close relative who has experiences parkinsonian symptoms such as a tremor. If the cause of parkinson disease was due to psychological reasons, relatives are more likely to avoid it as long as they dont have the same exact habits the parkinson patient used to have in the past.
If no relatives have parkinson disease, the average is 2%. Educated people are more likely to get this disease than non-educated that may relate to brain degeneration.
How can depression be created?
Things beyond our control can affect depression (such as a relationship)
If it is beyond our control, it is through our choices that brings us a negative outcome.
Choices that result in negative outcome is
- Bad Managment of Decisions: Does not make decisions that profit the individual in the person long term. Will see more depression than joy in his lifetime in the long term.
- Bad Managment of Level of Priority: Sets in priority things that the individual sacrifices other things that bring more profit than what he is setting for. This means loosing something (more depression) over winning something small (small joy). More depression - small joy = Still a lot of depression.
- Pessimistic on an Outcome that was planned well: Should take an outcome as a nature of event, something that is beyond their control, and through good management of decisions, in the long term, he should think positively that it will get more positive returns than negative ones.
For instance, gambling does not mean that the individual is a person that will create a pathetic attitude or depression. It depends on his choices. Usually, all gambling except poker have negative expected value. In the long term, you will loose. Thus, most casino games are always bad management decisions. For those that have a positive expected value, such as poker, they have to set a level of priority. If they are trying to play for hours in order to win "some pennies", it is not important as giving up your job, or spending less time with your family, and so on.