Das Parkinson-Herz

The Parkinsonian Heart

„Subsequent researchers in Italy have named this condition, in which the heart’s dopamine receptors show diminished activity levels, “The Parkinsonian Heart.” see: Current Medicinal Chemistry [2007] 14 (23) : 2421-2428; Fornai F, Ruffoli R, Soldani P, Ruggieri S, Paparelli A. “The Parkinsonian Heart is characterized by a severe loss of the physiological noradrenergic innervation and a slight impairment of central autonomic control,”

We know from the responses of recovering PDers that these nerves are dormant, and not “lost” or dead. During recovery, many PDers have been astonished to feel a sensation in the chest that feels as if “Something just clicked on in my heart!” or “Lately, I can feel a new sensation in my chest: it expands when I feel emotion!” This rapid shift in heart feeling and heart awareness during recovery suggests that the heart nerve cells have merely become dormant, not dead, just like the dopamine-producing cells of the brain’s substantia nigra are dormant. These brain cells used to be thought of as dead until research proved that they had merely reverted to undefined, embryonic-type cells. In both cases, in heart and in brain, these types of cell change reflect, not illness, but the healthy body’s efficiency, run along the lines of the “use it or lose it” principle. When I use the words “lose it” in the

preceding sentence, remember: the cells themselves are not lost; the differentiation of the cell into a dopamine-producer is temporarily lost until such time as the cell is once again called on to be a dopamine-producer.“

In: Janice Walton-Hadlock: Recovering from Parkinson’s Disease: Understanding its Cause and Mastering an Effective Treatment, Santa Cruc, Ca. 2008