To dopamine, with love.....

DOPAMINE…

This tiny molecule found its way into my mind when my father was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease about 20 years ago. The irony being that the molecule was already a component of the functioning of my mind. And yet, when I heard the word dopamine, it did not particularly fascinate me. I was more intrigued by Parkinson’s disease as such because of its phenomenal and peculiar motor manifestations and because of the fact that its etiology was largely unknown. I always wondered what made my father susceptible to this disease in the first place- a disease which I hadn’t even heard of, until that point in time. There was none in his family who was known to suffer from Parkinson’s disease. And thus, when I entered my first year of medical college, I had a special curiosity towards this disease. Even at that time, my focus was more on the disease and the areas of the brain it involved. Dopamine stood inconspicuously in the background, and I easily overlooked it.

I strongly believe that no important understanding and discovery can come in the absence of exposure to life in all its depth. One has to allow oneself to experience the pulse of life in order to arrive at any meaningful conclusion. This holds true especially for the medical profession- be it for a physiologist or a clinician. Theory can only provide a reference base for the answers we seek from life. And thus, I learnt much more about Parkinson’s disease and its characteristics from my father…more than from books. I studied my father out of genuine curiosity- his behaviour, personality, disease and the gradual transformation in him over the years. I studied my father’s past to pick up clues. And it was thus that dopamine made itself increasingly visible to me. I realized that to understand Parkinson’s disease, I needed to have a greater understanding of dopamine. I read extensively on disorders that resulted from dopamine imbalance- schizophrenia, schizoid personality disorder, bipolar disorder and so on. I read up on addiction, impulsive behaviour and obsession, on creativity, on the phenomenon of love and dependency, on inspiration/motivation and suicidal tendencies. And I started slowly getting to know dopamine. The more I studied it, the more reverence I developed for it.

Today, dopamine means to me the very molecule of life…especially in terms of its role in the reward pathways in the brain- an area which fascinates me to no end. I wish to study this molecule in great detail and to devote further pages on this blog to increase my understanding of this molecule. I wish to devote a good part of my life ahead for research on dopamine. And if I were to have just one wish in life, it would be to see my name in connection with research on this molecule! That would be my greatest tribute to my deceased father whose life was the greatest tragedy that I witnessed, on account of this dreadful disease.