Word: parkinsonian
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Sacks' neurological interest in music dates back to the 1960s, when he noted that the parkinsonian patients he was treating could often inexplicably be roused from their catatonia by music. The leaps in brain science since then, particularly in magnetic resonance imaging scans, mean that neurologists can now actually see what happens when we hear or even compose music. Scans show that, neurally, the experience of imagining music is much the same as listening to it. Also, that the corpus callosum, the mass of nerve fibers that wire the two hemispheres of the brain together, is enlarged in professional musicians...
...periphery of the American consciousness. There have been occasional revelations that public figures suffer from the illness, including Attorney General Janet Reno, the boxer Mohammed Ali and Pope John Paul II. And in 1990, the movie "Awakenings" illustrated with striking realism the physical incapacity of patients with Parkinsonian symptoms. But for whatever reason (perhaps because the public figures stricken with Parkinson's are in the expected age bracket for the disease and have not been vocal about their health), the illness does not have a high level of public awareness...
...role in sleep, mood, depression and anxiety. They have also discerned five different receptor subtypes for dopamine, a neurotransmitter thought to be involved in schizophrenia. By formulating compounds that selectively bind to particular dopamine receptors, for example, drug designers can craft schizophrenia drugs that curb hallucinations without triggering disabling Parkinsonian symptoms...
...dirty drug," says Mount Sinai's Davis. "It probably binds to a whole bunch of receptors. We used to think that was a bad thing. Now we think that's maybe a good thing." Perhaps because of its affinity for serotonin receptors, Clozaril is largely free of the Parkinsonian side effects (the "Thorazine shuffle" and so on) that plague the classic antipsychotic drugs. It was also the first drug to ameliorate symptoms of schizophrenia that are resistant to other drugs. But Clozaril has a major drawback: a life-threatening side effect called agranulocytosis, a drastic drop in white blood cells...
Many boxers with cavum septi pellucidi suffer permanently from the Parkinsonian symptoms that sent Ali to the hospital. After two days in the hospital, however, Fahn reported "that Ali was responding so well to doses of Sinemet and Symmetrel, drugs that replenish the brain's supply of dopamine, that his symptoms were "melting away." Visitors, including the Rev. Jesse Jackson, said that Ali was entertaining other patients with magic tricks and seemed to be his old ebullient self. Before leaving the hospital for a trip to the Sudan, Ali vowed to mend his ways...