Perhaps we can gain insight concerning Parkinson's disease if we begin at the end and go backward until we come to the point of insult. First, let's see if we can define an end upon which we can all agree. I will give my definition as: The neurotransmitter, dopamine, is not reaching the dopamine receptor points where it is supposed to affect fluidity of motion. This automatically leads to the question, "Why not?" This question leads to several possibilities:

1) There is no dopamine.

2) The transfer points are disabled or non-functional.

3) the receptor sites are blocked or otherwise non-functional.


Each possibility has several possible explanations, and each explanation has several possible causalities. Let's see if we can break it down from here.

michael b.