...or similar prize.

The research community is going to have to take a different view of PD if progress is to be made. They are locked into a mindset that looks at PD in a way that paid off for things like polio and such - find cause, find magic bullet.

But PD is part of a class of problems that remain now that the one bug, one drug class has been pretty much eliminated. And, just in case we do still have a secret audience, I'd like to suggest a new model for their consideration - the automobile paradigm.

An auto is produced, rolls out of the factory into the arms of its excited owners, carries the family along for many years, goes to many new places, is passed along to new owners, begins to show wear and tear, gets older, gradually wears out, and finally passes the point where repair is possible and so goes to the Big Junkyard in the Sky.

That's the normal process of life, aging, and death. But some cars have a harder time of it. We even insult them with the name "lemons". Through no fault of their own, they came out of the factory a little different. They passed the inspections. They looked good. They ran well for years. But far too early things began to go wrong.

So let's take a minute to look at the life of one of those automobiles in a little more detail. It passed along the assembly line over a period of several days as various workers assembled various systems.

On Monday, a fellow with a little hangover installed the electronics. Modern automobiles have a system of sensors and black boxes that is a wonder to behold. Instead of "a computer" there are dozens of them, some tiny and some not. Sensors detect a temperature increase that shouldn't be there and tells a black box that turns on a fan that cools things down that the sensor reports. That is a feedback loop, it is incredibly powerful, and our body is full of them. But they are in the endocrine system so most neuro scientists are not familiar with them.

On Tuesday, a fellow who had been passed over for a promotion left out some filters in the fuel pathways. As a result, impurities went straight from the gas tank into the engine. At first there was no obvious problem but gunk began to build up in the fuel injectors. A sensor picked up the problem but its black box couldn't quite correct for it. A low-level, chronic exposure to damaging substances from outside is present in the PD brain as our immune systems respond by activating the microglial defenders. Most neuros lack familiarity with the immune system.

So the seemingly perfect automobile rolls out into the arms of the proud owner. The first years go well, but damage is taking place, not only from fuel contaminants, but from general wear and tear that the sensor/black box network can handle with limited efficiency. Other factors come into play - low quality gasoline, a trip across the country, a missed oil change... Several autos were turned out that week with those defective systems and each has its own history. The ones that were driven hard were the first to start developing serious problems as the misfiring fuel injector system began to be detected as the first faint vibrations of the steering wheel.

The small town mechanics who looked at the problem felt that it was the front end shaking. Maybe a wheel out of balance. They didn't know about the black boxes or the missing filter inside the fuel tank.

And so it went until it could go no more.