beyond a shadow of a doubt, that much idiopathic PD is related to either drugs or illness activating Toll Like Receptors which promote an immune response that inflames areas in the brain and begins a cell cascade.

There is a company called Idera, which is working on toll like receptor antagonists, which would silence inflammatory cytokines, such as tumor necrosis factor. The company believes they have drug candidates which will be useful in diabetes and MS.

I think that they don't know it yet, but they may have one of the main therapeutic answers to PD.

JMHO.

If you (or a rat) are exposed to bacterial toxins in the womb at the time particular parts of your nervous system are forming, you will as an adult exhibit similar symptoms as those described in the article at the start of the thread. Your brain's microglia go postal and pump out cytokines. The situation is worsened by stress sensitivity from a similar fetal exposure. The two malfunctioning systems amplify each other with two main effects. One is that the brain suffers physical damage and repair is blocked. The other is that elevated levels of cytokines and stress hormones interfere with normal neurotransmitter activity.

The first effect explains the "progressive" nature of PD and the second explains why we are so stress sensitive. It also explains why an infected tooth such as Ron had a few weeks ago becomes such a big deal.