So I was studying dopaminergic pathways, and I got to thinking about the poignant phrase spoken in many cultures: "Hope is the last to die" or "Hope dies last".
As I looked at the dopaminergic pathways depicted in the lower graphic below, I recollected that Parkinson's begins with protein accumulation in your brain stem or lower, and then progresses upward, affecting you substantia nigra, and then onward and upward along your dopaminergic pathways, sometimes messing with executive decision making and cognition in the frontal lobe.
But the good news I think: Hope is the last to die.
The upper graphic below shows the Anterior Cingulate (which controls perserverence and motivation in the face of adversity and difficulty) and the Prefrontal Lobe (which controls planning, executive function, and priority in response to motivation). Perhaps the functions controlled by these two areas of the brain grab the lion's share of our sense of hope - not quitting, carrying on, finding a way.
The nexus of these two areas of the brain, as it happens, is located at the highest tip of the last tributary of river-channels (the dopaminergic pathways) along which dopamine flows. As the flood waters of protein rise as we age, as we go on, the last flicker of burning dopamine - like a candle held high above the flood - is Hope.
Hope, by God's design, is the last to die.
God Bless,
Glen Pettibone
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