biodiversity,, exotics, invasives, Music, native plants, nature, Parkinson's, Research, Reviews, Singing, wildflowers , , , , , , , Leave a comment

Where have all the (native) flowers gone?

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Prosser, R.S., Brain, R.A. Where have all the flowers gone? A systematic evaluation of factors driving native terrestrial plant decline in North America. Environ Sci Pollut Res (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-024-34349-9 

Prosser and Brain have done the research and  have come up with the following conclusions:

  • Habitat alteration and non-native species are the most important drivers of the decline in native terrestrial plant diversity in North America.
  • No listed species in the U.S. or Canada faced a singular threat. In the recovery plans for all listed species, several threats were identified as contributing to their risk of extirpation or extinction.
  • Pesticides, specifically herbicides, represent a micro-scale contributor to the decline of plant biodiversity in North America relative to other drivers.

(Note: the above three points are taken verbatim from text in the article, although they are not presented as bullets in the subject article. Emphasis using bold and italics has been added).

In their conclusion, they argue that pesticides and herbicides make an easy target for litigation, even though they contribute minimally to the extirpation or extinction of native plants .

On the other hand, Paraquat is an herbicide that not only has been banned in over 50 other nation-states, and has been linked as a probable cause of Parkinson’s Disease in the book Ending Parkinson’s Disease: A Prescription For Action  and in this February 2024 article on the EarthJustice website: This Weed Killer Is Linked to Parkinson’s. Why Isn’t It Banned Yet?

I would suggest that the authors of the article on causes contributing to reduction of native plant species are failing, in their words, to see the forest by focusing on the trees. I am a native plant advocate who also has Parkinson’s Disease. I don’t know whether I have been exposed to Paraquat in the past. Just because pesticides and herbicides are not a major factor in the reduction of native species doesn’t mean I should just ignore the bigger picture of the effect of herbicides like Paraquat on the species Homo sapiens, many of whom, including myself, have displaced other native occupants of this territory, like the Apaches, the Tonkawas, and other tribal groups who are members of the same Genus and species.

This post has covered most of my main interests: scientific research, Parkinson’s Disease, and native plants. All that’s missing is some music:

The Parkinson’s Anthem (We Ain’t Givin’ Up Hope)

#nativeplants  #research #parkinsonsdisease #advocacy

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Resistance is futile…

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Most folks will recall that line from various Star Trek encounters  with the Borg, as well as the following line “You will be assimilated.” Or was it the preceding line? Doesn’t matter, because the purpose of this post is to “announce” that my other WordPress blog, “Return To The Natives / Native Plants Are The Answer,” has been assimilated into “Bob’s Brain: Living Well With PD and Other Comorbidities.”

With the assimilation comes a couple of new categories in the menu: Native Plants, and Wildflowers. Here’s an example of what one might find under either of those categories.

2016-03-06-Rock-Pink-640pxlw

Rock Pink (Phemeranthus calycinus). The blooms are ephemeral, lasting only one day, although a single plant may have more than one bloom. They grow in limestone soils, in locations where waters flow after rains (in this part of the world). This was captured digitally following recent rains in early May, 2016. Their bloom period is from April through September, which is the latest month in the year that I’ve been able to photograph them.

Now I’ve assimilated the two, there’s only one blog to intermittently post articles about things that interest me. Reduces my guilt in half. Next step is to post the news on RTTN / NPATA with a link to Bob’s Brain, and then deleting the old blog. I’m a cyborg, having had DBS, so it should work out as well as the coders have allowed for such a smooth transition.

We’ll see what happens.

Live long and prosper.

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Dance, Exercise, Music, Parkinson's, Research, Reviews, Singing , , , , 1 Comment

Music, music music (and exercise)

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Dial the wayback machine to 2021, where this digital commons paper from Sacred Heart University on Influence and Effect of Music on Exercise  By Kendall Stewart appeared.

… Lack of adherence to exercise and physical activity, and related programs, is correlated with absence of motivation and enjoyment. Research has proven the presence of music, during physical activity, to be a strong motivator and linked to increased enjoyment, thus increasing exercise adherence. The purpose of this essay is to compile research in order to analyze and explain how the presence of music during physical activity increases mood and affective state of mind to bring about increased adherence and motivation as well as describe how individuals feel as though they are doing less work/exercising less when listening to music while being physically active. In addition, … examine the effect that different music genres, speeds, paces, and preferences have on exercise performance, enjoyment and adherence. (emphasis added).

Among the citations are:

de Dreu MJ, van der Wilk ASD, Poppe E, Kwakkel G, van Wegen EEH. Rehabilitation,
exercise therapy and music in patients with Parkinson’s disease: A meta-analysis of the
effects of music-based movement therapy on walking ability, balance and quality of life.
Parkinsonism & Related Disorders. 2012;18(Suppl 1):S114-S119. doi:10.1016/S1353-
8020(11)70036-0

which also refers to:

Goodwin VA, Richards SH, Taylor RS, Taylor AH, Campbell JL. The effectiveness of exercise interventions for people with Parkinson’s disease: a systematic review and meta-analysis. Mov Disord. 2008 Apr 15;23(5):631-40. doi: 10.1002/mds.21922. PMID: 18181210.

Evidence supported exercise as being beneficial with regards to physical functioning, health-related quality of life, strength, balance and gait speed for people with PD. There was insufficient evidence support or refute the value of exercise in reducing falls or depression.

On the topic of music and PD, we have:

Poliakoff, E., Bek, J., Phillips, M., Young, W. R., & Rose, D. C. (2023). Vividness and Use of Imagery Related to Music and Movement in People with Parkinson’s: A Mixed-methods Survey Study. Music & Science, 6. https://doi.org/10.1177/20592043231197919

excerpts from the abstract (as always, emphasis added):

… Music is used in interventions for people with Parkinson’s, either to pace movements, or as an integral element of activities such as dance. This study explored self-reported vividness of two forms of imagery – motor imagery evoked by music and auditory (including musical) imagery – in people with Parkinson’s, and whether and how they use these types of imagery in everyday life.

Participants (N = 199) completed:

(i) vividness ratings of visual and kinesthetic music-evoked motor imagery,

(ii) vividness ratings of auditory imagery, and

(iii) ratings and open questions about their everyday use of these types of imagery.

…  <20% reported actively using music to support motor imagery in daily activities. In contrast, participants reported a broad range of contexts and uses for musical imagery (imagined music), from supporting movement (e.g., walking or exercise) to emotion regulation, and concentration.

Correlational analyses associated vividness of music- evoked motor imagery with an urge to dance and musical training, while the use of musical imagery was associated with singing ability.

A minority of participants reported not experiencing either motor or musical imagery, suggesting that interventions based on imagery may not be suitable for all.

… even participants with more severe motor symptoms reported experiencing and using both types of imagery, indicating promise for their strategic use at different stages of Parkinson’s. … musical and motor imagery have the potential to support rehabilitation strategies for Parkinson’s, either separately or in combination.

Not the “hardest” scientific evidence there is, but hey, Einstein (a guy who only has to be referred to by his surname, and we all know who were talking about) reported that he did his though experiments using visual imagery, and only later (and with much labor) worked out the math. (I believe the reference can be found in a book “The Act of Creation” by Arthur Koestler, if memory serves. As Einstein reportedly said, you can always look it up).

How to end this post on music and Parkinson’s Disease? Rather than submit one of my own YouTube videos, how about one from another person whose first name alone is sufficient to identify him:

Elvis

Dance, Drumming, Music, Research, Singing , , Leave a comment

We got the beat

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This open access article piqued my interest. I have long been aware of studies that showed that infants are basically altruistic. This is the first one I came across that shows that infant “Spontaneous Motor Tempo”  (SMT)  is something that can be measured. Here’s the link:

Infant Spontaneous Motor Tempo

From the abstract:

We present the first data documenting the SMT of infants from 5 to 37 months of age using a simple drumming task. As in late childhood and adulthood, we predicted that infant SMT would slow across the first years of life. However, we find that older infants drum more quickly than younger infants. Furthermore, studies of adults suggest larger bodies prefer slower rhythms. 

(emphasis added to quote)  … which explains why this is the first time I’ve heard about infant SMT. A couple of their research highlights:

  • SMT can be measured at 5 months old using a simple drumming task
  • Infant drumming gets faster and more regular as they get older

Kinda makes you want to read  the whole article…

or sing along to the title to this post:

We Got The Beat

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Prairie Celestials – it was an average year

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One of my favorite wildflowers is the Nemastylis geminiflora, a member of of the Iridaceae, or Iris family, in spite of some of its common names including Pleat-leaf Lily, Prairie Celestial, Celestial, and Celestial Lily. Below are photos from this year and a few years ago. I was on a Power for Parkinson’s Zoom call this past Friday (4/5/24) in which we were asked to share what gives us joy in our lives. I shared this photo:

Neamstylis geminiflora

The first photo was taken in 2021, The other, in 2024.

Both taken with a Canon Elph 190IS Powershot small camera, if I recall correctly (this year’s photo might have been taken with an iPhone 12 Pro). The difference in the photos can be accounted for by four possible influences:

  1. The photographer fell and fractured a femur following 2023’s bloom period, and is more cautious about lying down on the ground to emulate Steven Scwhartzman’s signature technique of using the sky as a background, due to the possibility of not being able to get back up again.
  2. The abundance and proliferation of exotic, invasive species on the berm, such as Japanese Brome, Malta Star Thistle, which reduce the native Nemastylis’ access to sunlight, and
  3. The failure of mowers who maintain the firebreak between the greenbelt and the to practice good hygiene by pressure washing and cleaning of mower blades between sites (one can only assume) and
  4. The setting of mower blades at less than 7 inches above the ground, which results in scalping of top of the berm, inviting aggressive invasive species onto the berm and into the greenbelt.

 

Above: Celestial against the sky.
Second photo: Two blurry Celestials in foreground, blurry Dakota Mock Vrvain middle, and focus on Dakota Mock Vervain in the center, with backdrop of Ashe junipers and grasses.
Tradescantia gigantea (Giant Spiderwort) an early bloomer in late Winter to early Spring, with blooms ranging from pinkish to purple. Provides color during an otherwise bleak season for landscaping.
Finally, Malta Star Thistle (Centaurea melitensis) a very nasty and invasive plant that produces thousands of seeds per plant. Just too many of them on the greenbelt

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Music, nature, Parkinson's, Singing , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

An early Spring, this year

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This February has seen no scenes like the one above (Feb. 15, 2021) where we saw over 6 inches of snow and sub freezing temperatures for about two weeks. Thousands of people lost power, and I don’t want to look up how many died from the pre-20th Century conditions to which they were not conditioned or prepared to deal with.

However, thanks to Global Warming, this Winter has been warm, for the most part. So we’ve seen some early blooms, one of which always persists, is the Ten-Petal Anemone. This bloom is white, but the species can vary from white through pinkish to violet. (An artist might differ with my choice of descriptive colors).

And here’s an unopened Anemone berlandieri from the violet end of the spectrum.

What are these doing in the Bob’s Brain: Living well with PD and other co-morbidities blog?

  • Bob’s brain mistakenly failed to switch to the Back to the natives: Native plants are the answer before beginning the draft, or
  • Bob’s brain has other interests in his life other than an incurable, progressive,  degenerative neurological disease,
  • or both of the above… whatever answer you choose, you won’t go wrong.

Oh well, might as well end with a song:

https://youtu.be/sxoTWy0bTXo?si=NmKkd0bLzysH8ZSO

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Do you wanna dance?

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Costa V, Suassuna AOB, Brito TSS, da Rocha TF, Gianlorenco AC. Physical exercise for treating non-motor symptoms assessed by general Parkinson’s disease scales: systematic review and meta-analysis of clinical trials. BMJ Neurol Open. 2023 Oct 4;5(2):e000469. doi: 10.1136/bmjno-2023-000469. PMID: 37808516; PMCID: PMC10551973.

This study was a systematic review and meta-analysis.  Like many such desk reviews and meta-analyses, it winds up, in layperson’s terminology, comparing apples and oranges and pears and papayas and tangerines and dragon fruit and kiwis to each other. Treatments included “multimodal, aerobic, resistance, dance, conventional physical therapy and other types.” Five studies apparently were vulnerable to bias (in favor of the treatment being studied, one would suppose). They did conclude that, after sifting the studies down to eight, that aerobic exercise had a stronger effect than conventional exercise on non-motor symptoms. This is in conformance with other reviews that I have read (or read the abstracts of) in the past.

And then we have this study, which might have been kicked out due to possibility of bias, or maybe it wasn’t published early enough to be included.

Physical activity based on dance movements as complementary therapy for Parkinson’s disease: Effects on movement, executive functions, depressive symptoms, and quality of life
Duarte JdS, Alcantara WA, Brito JS, Barbosa LCS, Machado IPR, et al. (2023) Physical activity based on dance movements as complementary therapy for Parkinson’s disease: Effects on movement, executive functions, depressive symptoms, and quality of life. PLOS ONE 18(2): e0281204. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0281204

Methods used were described as follows:

13 individuals with PD (Hoehn & Yahr I-III, MDS-UPDRS 67.62 ± 20.83), underwent physical activity based on dance movements (2x week for 6 months). Participants were assessed at baseline and after 6 months on movement (POMA, TUG and MDS-UPDRS Part III), executive function (FAB), depressive symptoms (MADRS), quality of life (PDQ-39), and severity of PD (MDS-UPDRS TOTAL).

The results were:

significant improvement in the movement (balance and gait) by the POMA test, p = 0.0207, executive function by the FAB test, p = 0.0074, abstract reasoning and inhibitory control by the FAB, Conceptualization test, p = 0.0062, and Inhibitory Control, p = 0.0064, depressive symptoms assessed by the MADRS test significantly reduced, p = 0.0214, and the quality of life by the PDQ-39 had a significant increase after the intervention, p = 0.0006, showed significant improvements between the pre-and post-intervention periods of physical activity based on dance movements.

The conclusions were obvious:

Physical activity based on dance movements contributed to significant improvements in movement (balance and gait), executive functions, especially in cognitive flexibility and inhibitory control, and the quality of life too. Sensorimotor integration, most cognitive processing and social skills may have contributed to the results.

Personally, I have to wonder whether inhibitory control and executive functions apply to my individual results, based on feedback from others, but it could be that I just need to keep on dancing more and worry less about what other folks think.

For nerds like myself, clicking on the following link will get you a list of similar articles published within the past five years (2019 – 2024)  available with free full text.

So, to reiterate the title of this post:

depression, Exercise, Parkinson's, Research , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

Turn off the TV and get some exercise! (Or use it to exercise to Power for Parkinson’s YouTube videos).

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That’s the takeaway message from an analysis of non-identifiable patient data recently reported in this article:

Too much TV watching correlated with higher rates of dementia, depression, and PD

However, the study did find that some computer screen time had a neuroprotective effect. (This blog’s  author’s note: It would not be a bad idea to set a timer to remind yourself to get up every hour or so and get up, stand up, and dance to a little Bob Marley music for a minute or two, or three).

Methods

  • 473,184 participants initially free of dementia, PD, and depression from UK Biobank, as well as 39,652 participants who had magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) data
  • Self-reported screen time exposure variables included
    • TV viewing and
    • computer use
  • Regression models were used to estimate the association between different types of screen time and
    • Incidence of dementia,
    • Parkinson’s disease,
    • depression, and
    • Multimorbidity status.
  • Multiple linear regression models were used to assess the linear relationship between different types of screen time and MRI biomarkers in a subgroup of participants.

Multimorbidity was defined as two or more diagnoses of chronic diseases occurring simultaneously in an individual.

During the study time frame,

  • 6,091 (1.29%) participants developed dementia
  • 23,632 (4.99%) participants developed depression,
  • 1,214 (0.26%) participants developed both dementia and depression,
  • 486 (0.10%) participants developed both PD and depression

Participants

  •  Highest TV viewing time were
    • Older,
    • Typically male,
    • Higher body mass index (BMI),
    • Lower Physical Activity (PA) and
    • More likely  previous or current smokers.

Risk for dementia and depression increased substantially among those with both low PA and highest TV viewing time.

The main novel finding of this study is that TV viewing time was positively associated with an increased risk of dementia, PD, depression and their multimorbidity status. Moderate computer using time (i.e., approximately 0.5–1 h/day) is associated with a lower risk of dementia, PD, and depression.  

Longitudinal analysis and eliminating cases of depression, dementia, and PD that were diagnosed within the first three years are the strengths of the study. Self-reports on the amount of screen time by participants is a weakness.

In conclusion:

 computer using was U-shaped associated with risk of dementia, PD, depression and their multimorbidity status, while TV viewing was associated with an increased risk. And different screen time may affect diseases risk through its association with brain structures. Although associations between different types of screen time and diseases are not strongly attenuated with different levels of PA. Replacing different types of screen time with daily-life PA or structured exercise is associated with lower disease risk. Our results support the potential of limiting different types of screen time and shifting to physical activity to mitigate disease risk.

And this person with PD has spent too many hours in front of the computer screen writing this up, so I will follow their advice and engage in some PA.

Citation:

Wu, H., Gu, Y., Du, W. et al. Different types of screen time, physical activity, and incident dementia, Parkinson’s disease, depression and multimorbidity status. Int J Behav Nutr Phys Act 20, 130 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1186/s12966-023-01531-0

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Deep Brain Stimulation (DBS), depression, Parkinson's, prodromal, Research, Reviews , , Leave a comment

ET & PD – is there is or is there ain’t a connection?

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As a person who has had essential tremors ever since his teenage years, and a person who was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease at the average onset age of 62 years, it was with great interest that the author reviewed the abstracts and full text open access PubMedCenter articles available on the topic.

The author can recall others (medical professionals included) who did not observe tremors, although this subject could feel the tremors within, during teenage years. During undergraduate studies, he once was told that his initial impression on a fellow college student looking to sublet a room was that of a “speed freak” (methamphetamine abuser to those unfamiliar with the term). At age 28, his future wife remarked on his trembling hands as he reached out to touch her cheek in a moment of intimacy. And at age 60, following several recurring episodes of depression and increasing tremors, he was treated for essential tremors for almost two years, beginning in 2010. Then, after having opted for Deep Brain Stimulation (DBS), and undergoing further testing for several months, a third symptom, rigidity, one of the four cardinal symptoms of PD, was observed, allowing the Movement Disorder Specialist to finally make a diagnosis of PD. Mind you, the four cardinal symptoms required to make the call haven’t changed since 1817, when James Parkinson published his Essay On The Shaking Palsy. In case you don’t  already know, they are Tremors, Postural Instability, Bradykinesia, and Rigidity.

On the other hand, it was only in 2009 that the study “LINGO1 rs9652490 is associated with essential tremor and Parkinson disease” came out online and published in print a few months later in 2010.  In which year, the observant reader will notice, was when this author began receiving treatments for essential tremors, finally diagnosed in late 2011 as Parkinson’s.

After a few articles reported similar results, a few negative results were reported, in part by one group of desk jockeys who conducted a meta-review and concluded that there was NO association between ET and PD.  On looking just briefly at the abstracts, one can see that those that found a positive connection and those that found no connection were looking at different populations. The positive association came from a European background, and those with no association came from a Chinese population sample.  Mix them all together and you get mixed results, which doesn’t mean that a person with a half European background (like myself) with this specific variation doesn’t have an increased risk of developing ET (P = 0.014) and Parkinson’s(P = 0.0003), as reported in the article noted above.

So who should I believe? A study that involved a sample in which the participants were similar in ethnic/DNA background to mine? Or a meta-review which concludes that the null hypothesis is true? Or my own brain and body, which began exhibiting strong tremors back in late teens to early twenties? And which became so severe by age 60  that I couldn’t carry a cup of coffee from the kitchen to the living room without going into extreme oscillations?

Those were rhetorical questions, by the way.

References:

Jiménez-Jiménez FJ, García-Martín E, Lorenzo-Betancor O, Pastor P, Alonso-Navarro H, Agúndez JA. LINGO1 and risk for essential tremor: results of a meta-analysis of rs9652490 and rs11856808. J Neurol Sci. 2012 Jun 15;317(1-2):52-7. doi: 10.1016/j.jns.2012.02.030. Epub 2012 Mar 17. PMID: 22425540.

Agúndez JA, Lorenzo-Betancor O, Pastor P, García-Martín E, Luengo A, Alonso-Navarro H, Jiménez-Jiménez FJ. LINGO1 rs9652490 and rs11856808 are not associated with the risk of Parkinson’s disease: results of a meta-analysis. Parkinsonism Relat Disord. 2012 Jun;18(5):657-9. doi: 10.1016/j.parkreldis.2011.09.005. Epub 2011 Sep 28. PMID: 21955595.

Lorenzo-Betancor O, Samaranch L, García-Martín E, Cervantes S, Agúndez JA, Jiménez-Jiménez FJ, Alonso-Navarro H, Luengo A, Coria F, Lorenzo E, Irigoyen J, Pastor P; Iberian Parkinson’s Disease Genetics Study Group Researchers. LINGO1 gene analysis in Parkinson’s disease phenotypes. Mov Disord. 2011 Mar;26(4):722-7. doi: 10.1002/mds.23452. Epub 2011 Jan 4. PMID: 21506150.

Wu YW, Rong TY, Li HH, Xiao Q, Fei QZ, Tan EK, Ding JQ, Chen SD. Analysis of Lingo1 variant in sporadic and familial essential tremor among Asians. Acta Neurol Scand. 2011 Oct;124(4):264-8. doi: 10.1111/j.1600-0404.2010.01466.x. Epub 2010 Dec 15. PMID: 21158743.

Zuo X, Jiang H, Guo JF, Yu RH, Sun QY, Hu L, Wang L, Yao LY, Shen L, Pan Q, Yan XX, Xia K, Tang BS. Screening for two SNPs of LINGO1 gene in patients with essential tremor or sporadic Parkinson’s disease in Chinese population. Neurosci Lett. 2010 Sep 6;481(2):69-72. doi: 10.1016/j.neulet.2010.06.041. Epub 2010 Jun 19. PMID: 20600614.

Clark LN, Park N, Kisselev S, Rios E, Lee JH, Louis ED. Replication of the LINGO1 gene association with essential tremor in a North American population. Eur J Hum Genet. 2010 Jul;18(7):838-43. doi: 10.1038/ejhg.2010.27. Epub 2010 Apr 7. PMID: 20372186; PMCID: PMC2987362.

Nica AC, Montgomery SB, Dimas AS, Stranger BE, Beazley C, Barroso I, Dermitzakis ET. Candidate causal regulatory effects by integration of expression QTLs with complex trait genetic associations. PLoS Genet. 2010 Apr 1;6(4):e1000895. doi: 10.1371/journal.pgen.1000895. PMID: 20369022; PMCID: PMC2848550.

Vilariño-Güell C, Wider C, Ross OA, Jasinska-Myga B, Kachergus J, Cobb SA, Soto-Ortolaza AI, Behrouz B, Heckman MG, Diehl NN, Testa CM, Wszolek ZK, Uitti RJ, Jankovic J, Louis ED, Clark LN, Rajput A, Farrer MJ. LINGO1 and LINGO2 variants are associated with essential tremor and Parkinson disease. Neurogenetics. 2010 Oct;11(4):401-8. doi: 10.1007/s10048-010-0241-x. Epub 2010 Apr 6. PMID: 20369371; PMCID: PMC3930084.

Wu Y, Wang X, Xu W, Liu W, Fang F, Ding J, Song Y, Chen S. Genetic variation in LINGO-1 (rs9652490) and risk of Parkinson’s disease: twelve studies and a meta-analysis. Neurosci Lett. 2012 Jul 26;522(1):67-72. doi: 10.1016/j.neulet.2012.06.018. Epub 2012 Jun 15. PMID: 22710005.

Jasinska-Myga B, Wider C. Genetics of essential tremor. Parkinsonism Relat Disord. 2012 Jan;18 Suppl 1:S138-9. doi: 10.1016/S1353-8020(11)70043-8. PMID: 22166413.

Bourassa CV, Rivière JB, Dion PA, Bernard G, Diab S, Panisset M, Chouinard S, Dupré N, Fournier H, Raelson J, Belouchi M, Rouleau GA. LINGO1 variants in the French-Canadian population. PLoS One. 2011 Jan 11;6(1):e16254. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0016254. PMID: 21264305; PMCID: PMC3019170.

Guo Y, Jankovic J, Song Z, Yang H, Zheng W, Le W, Tang X, Deng X, Yang Y, Deng S, Luo Z, Deng H. LINGO1 rs9652490 variant in Parkinson disease patients. Neurosci Lett. 2011 Jan 7;487(2):174-6. doi: 10.1016/j.neulet.2010.10.016. Epub 2010 Oct 15. PMID: 20951767.

Thier S, Lorenz D, Nothnagel M, Stevanin G, Dürr A, Nebel A, Schreiber S, Kuhlenbäumer G, Deuschl G, Klebe S. LINGO1 polymorphisms are associated with essential tremor in Europeans. Mov Disord. 2010 Apr 30;25(6):717-23. doi: 10.1002/mds.22887. PMID: 20310002.

Vilariño-Güell C, Ross OA, Wider C, Jasinska-Myga B, Cobb SA, Soto-Ortolaza AI, Kachergus JM, Keeling BH, Dachsel JC, Melrose HL, Behrouz B, Wszolek ZK, Uitti RJ, Aasly JO, Rajput A, Farrer MJ. LINGO1 rs9652490 is associated with essential tremor and Parkinson disease. Parkinsonism Relat Disord. 2010 Feb;16(2):109-11. doi: 10.1016/j.parkreldis.2009.08.006. Epub 2009 Aug 31. PMID: 19720553; PMCID: PMC2844122.

Deng H, Gu S, Jankovic J. LINGO1 variants in essential tremor and Parkinson’s disease. Acta Neurol Scand. 2012 Jan;125(1):1-7. doi: 10.1111/j.1600-0404.2011.01516.x. Epub 2011 Apr 7. PMID: 21470193.

Zimprich A. Genetics of Parkinson’s disease and essential tremor. Curr Opin Neurol. 2011 Aug;24(4):318-23. doi: 10.1097/WCO.0b013e3283484b87. PMID: 21734494.

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It might as well be Spring… or Fall

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The long dry Summer was followed by a few showers (about a week, and 6″ of the liquid stuff), and some more warm weather. Some plants, like the Clematis drummondii in the first few frames, decided it was a good time to put out new fowers, even though they had already gone through the yearly cycle of blooms, with the female plants putting out their achenes that have given the plant the common name of Old Man’s Beard.

The vignetted shot towards the sun shows a Cedar Elm (Ulmus crassifolia) with some of its leaves already starting to turn to their Fall golden yellow color. In the tangled web of branches and vines are a few other species, difficult to identify in the photo.

The bottom left shot shows the desiccated remains of a Monarda sp. (hard to tell them apart from just the skeletal remains). Meanwhile, in the lower right is Tetraneuris scaposa or Four-nerve daisy, a perennial that can bloom throughout all four seasons, given the right conditions.

And so it goes…

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