[Conductor71]

Here is an interesting addition to the article published in Nature this month by the UK scientists at University of Sheffield who see PD as a combo of a psychological behavior impairment that is caused by faulty neurotransmission. I must say this is a rather refreshing take on things
.
Link to the discussion at PDOnline here

Therefore, our suggestion is that Parkinson’s disease may be understood in terms of a catastrophic impairment of automatisms/habits, which traps patients with Parkinson’s disease forever in goal-directed control of their behaviour. A classic example is that when walking on the street the patient with Parkinson’s disease can suddenly freeze, and find it difficult to start again, when recognizing and saluting an approaching person. The suggested reason is that when the patient starts thinking about the action of saluting, there is a shift of attention from walking to the gesture and articulation of the salute, which because the goal-directed system can only do one thing at a time, the walking becomes unassisted

[indigogo]

I think there is merit in this. I wish, though, they would have examples other than movement/walking related. Do they talk about how that would manifest itself in our other goal directed behaviors, ones that are more psychological?

I know there has been research done on "intentional" memory impairment and PD; in other words, we have trouble remembering to get things done in the future rather than trouble with remembering things from the past. Would that fall into the category of goal impairment?

I'll check out the discussion - thanks, Laura.

[tulip girl]

Wish I had all of my old habits back - even the bad ones like rolling my eyes with distain.

TG

[harley]

good grief... "sigh" i guess i have just been a mental case all of these years.. thats why the neuros cant figure out my "atypical ism". i need a shrink to fill me up with all of their anti psychotic meds and then put me out to pasture like a nice little droid and call it good. mmmooooooooooo.

[paula_w]

There is sometimes a fine line between good psychiatric conclusions and psycho-babble. I'm not in a position to evaluate which is which, but to me these 'forgotten habits' sound like attending, focusing problems which narrows down to pretty much trying not to do more than one thing at a time because you might fall or wreck. Maybe it's just the words that are used, but this 'can't remember habits' just wouldn't be my first pick by a long shot of what to research.

I can be persuaded of anything with evidence but i think we are crashing like a computer and there is so much misfiring and all the things that lead to it and follow it would not be helped by making us relearn our habits. We have to compensate/ adapt. I remember how to walk and talk. But I sometmes don't remember that my right side doesn't always go with me. It is something that happens to us all when we are old enough. We got short changed and get to go thru it all for double or triple the time the average person without parkinson does.

I'm not disagreeing but it just isn't interesting or helpful enough to me to spend limited funding on it. IMHO Feel free to disagree.
Harley you can just MOOO louder if you disagree....lol

[harley]

Originally Posted by paula_w

There is sometimes a fine line between good psychiatric conclusions and psycho-babble. I'm not in a position to evaluate which is which, but to me these 'forgotten habits' sound like attending, focusing problems which narrows down to pretty much trying not to do more than one thing at a time because you might fall or wreck. Maybe it's just the words that are used, but this 'can't remember habits' just wouldn't be my first pick by a long shot of what to research.

I can be persuaded of anything with evidence but i think we are crashing like a computer and there is so much misfiring and all the things that lead to it and follow it would not be helped by making us relearn our habits. We have to compensate/ adapt. I remember how to walk and talk. But I sometmes don't remember that my right side doesn't always go with me. It is something that happens to us all when we are old enough. We got short changed and get to go thru it all for double or triple the time the average person without parkinson does.

I'm not disagreeing but it just isn't interesting or helpful enough to me to spend limited funding on it. IMHO Feel free to disagree.
Harley you can just MOOO louder if you disagree....lol

cant mooooooooooo much louder with this box of pall malls sittin here paula

[Conductor71]

Originally Posted by paula_w

. Maybe it's just the words that are used, but this 'can't remember habits' just wouldn't be my first pick by a long shot of what to research.

I can be persuaded of anything with evidence but i think we are crashing like a computer and there is so much misfiring and all the things that lead to it and follow it would not be helped by making us relearn our habits. We have to compensate/ adapt. I remember how to walk and talk.

Paula,

These guys are saying the same thing as you are. They have confused things by using the word "behaviour". They are not saying we can't remember but rather that misfiring neurons are causing our movement pathways to jumble up. This is why sometimes we move normally, and at other times we can't do normal things like walk or brush our hair. Speaking of memory, I recall that when I first started experiencing motor impairment. It felt exactly like my arm or wrist "forgot" how to carry through a specific task like stirring a cup of tea. I think they do acknowledge compensation. However, in essence, I think that they are saying what you think that we are crashing; remember that a key component of crashing is when your computer "freezes".

As for further studies, yeah, I'm not sure either. I will say that their ideals are novel and seem to explain an awful lot but maybe rather too easily. It would be fantastic if they could prove this somehow and then figure out why this particular area is so hard hit by PD.

Just my take on it; I could be wrong :-)


Carey,

I agree it would be interesting if they could link this to strictly behaviors or psych aspects. There is so much we don't know in that regard.
Laura