Awakenings by Oliver Sacks6/1/2023 With L-dopa, however, most seem to experience an "awakening", and hence the title of the book. The book describes Sack's experience with this treatment on his patients.Īs Parkinsonism progresses, people become more and more "shutdown", losing touch with reality and increasingly self-absorbed into a reality of nothingness. Unlikely dopamine itself, it could pass the blood-brain barrier, increasing dopamine concentrations. In the 1950s and 60s, L-Dopa appeared as a treatment for Parkinsonism. The disease causes the death of cells in the substantia nigra (a region of the midbrain), which makes it not being able to have sufficient dopamine, which is largely responsible for motivational salience (motivation that elicits behaviour). The book brilliantly captures the lives and the experiences of these patients, and how they experience the world and themselves. People become speechless and motionless as if their "soul" has left. While the disease is known more for its motor symptoms, like bradykinesia (slowness of movement), rigidity of the limbs, and postural instability, it also impacts mood and cognition. It tells the story of Sack's patients affected with either Parkinson or most often encephalitis lethargica, also known as sleeping sickness, which resembles Parkinsonism, with perhaps somewhat more severe symptoms. My 4th book from Sacks and it didn't disappoint.
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