Show description

On one spring Monday, an editor ushered a new reporter to the desk behind mine, which had been vacant for two years. I was mi√ed because I had kept my copy paper on that desk. ) When my new neighbor, whose byline was Judy Nicol, o√ered to let me keep the paper on her desk, I figured she had to be all right. Besides, she was married and had a young daughter; that made her less threatening. So I got to know her reasonably well—well enough that as her marriage fell apart, I felt more comfortable with her than I ever had with any single woman of my age.

Dad said. ’’ That made perfect sense. But somehow it didn’t make me feel any better. Next I went to the local library to read what I could find about Parkinson’s. That made me feel even worse. In starkly clinical terms, the first medical reference books that I stumbled upon described a disease that was occasioned by the mysterious death of the cells in an obscure part of the brain buried deep under the huge lobes of nerve cells that enable us to think. The symptoms progressed inexorably from mild tremor and rigidity (that was me) to serious movement disorders— stooped posture, a shu∆ing gait, loss of balance, and a tendency to fall down.

The neurotransmitters are manufactured in the nerve cells and stored there, in tiny sacs, until they are needed. After each use, many of the neurotransmitter molecules are pumped back into the transmitter nerve cell and start the cycle over again. Dopamine is one such neurotransmitter. The Magnificent Brain 35 brain itself, where the message might be to remember to buy a gallon of milk on the way home from work. None of these messages would get through without the chemicals that serve as the relay-swimmers across the synapses.