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G&B class was full up today. People all but filled the room which made for a traffic jam for the walking exercises. After class, I went downtown to grab a bite to eat and to get to the PD seminar on "How PD Rewires the Brain."

I ate at the new fast food Indian/Asian street food place--Curry Up Now. I had tried them before (a couple of times) and was not impressed. Today they just happened to be near where I parked. I had their "Quesadillitz" and it was very good. A bit expensive (like all of their items) but the Q was tasty. Place was crowded. Young, Facebook (or Google or Twitter) types lunching, munching and bunching. Everyone on smart phones and with their laptops open and communicating. Whole new world!

Seminar was interesting! It focused on brain research that is being done, mostly on mice, that seeks to identify the neuro-mechanisms taking place as PD symptoms take hold over time. He talked about the two neural pathways that that trigger the release of dopamine in the brain--the direct paths and the indirect paths. It appears that the brain has several ways of triggering neurotransmitter activities--sort of a redundancy feature. The research is looking into what the brain does (mice brains) when different types of inhibitors are put into the system. The overall talk was fairly technical but it seemed to underscore the concept that people with PD have had their brains altered and that there might be ways to use the ability to alter to detect, stop the effects, and possibly reverse what has happened. In other words, lay new tracks that medications and other stimuli are helping with now.

Much to mull over! Laying new tracks! Makes sense!