Hi

With this post I seek neither to preach or teach but merely stimulate discussion.

Ever since I was diagnosed I've become increasingly convinced that not only are there undiscovered sub-sets of Parkinson's but that other Neurotransmitters are involved. My particular interest is stress as a causative factor in the development of the disease and therefore a possible role played by acetylcholine,serotonin,etc.
I was therefore both heartened and frustrated to discover that here in England Huw Morris stated that he now thinks early onset Parki is a separate disease related to serotonin, that MJF foundation has commissioned it's first research into stress and that the US Army has started researching Parkinson's and one of several areas interest is stress. (combat veterans sometimes manifest PTS as a movement disorder very Parkinsonian in appearance)
I say frustrated because I'm just a bloke with a laptop and average intelligence......so why only now are researchers starting to think outside the box.
General Anxiety Disorder and depression are separate conditions but both are assumed to be caused by low serotonin levels and as such are treated,mostly, with anti-depressants. These work, with varying degrees of success, for most people but not all. Further they are famous for initially making the problem worse (to the point of suicide in some cases) before the sufferer gets better.
Now in Sweden a team has mapped serotonin function in diagnosed GAD subjects and found they actually had too much serotonin which may explain the variable treatment results.
In our world I keep coming across folk who have been traditionally diagnosed, respond to dopa yet have a negative dat.scan. Whats the response ? Dat.scans are not foolproof/rely on operators skill. The usual. Maybe it's because dopamine ain't the 'main' problem ?
But levodopa works ! It's the 'Gold Std' ! Yes it does but it also slowly stops working.

Im not saying it's not dopamine,far from it. But since the last breakthrough was in the 1960's and its now 2015 and the last 50+ years of research have been focussed on dopamine cell death and we're no further on in this fight I feel it's time for a Paradigm shift.

Nigel