Anxiety and the Extra-Pyramidal Nervous System

[Guest guest]

~||{ National Parkinson Foundation }||~ ~||{ A World Wide Organization }||~

Anxiety and the Extra-Pyramidal Nervous System

The following symptoms, if they're anxiety-related, result from a disorder in the Extra- Pyramidal System: The Extra-Pyramidal System is affected in Parkinson disease (I feel unsteady or wobbly, I feel my hands or feet shaking or trembling, I feel I'm jumping or twitching). The Pyramidal System consists of cells in the cortex, the thinking part of the brain. Cells from the cortex, after receiving information from the thalamus about the state of the outside world, carry messages allowing you voluntarily to move, singly or in combination, the muscles of your face, trunk, arms, and legs. Fibers from each side of your cortex travel down to the spinal cord. In the brainstem they converge, then cross. The right-side of your brain controls the left-side of your body and vice-versa. In the brainstem, where the fibers converge and cross, they are visible as triangular, pyramid-like structures, hence the name. The Extra-Pyramidal System consists of cells in the basal ganglia, the cerebellum, and parts of the brainstem. These structures make-up most of the central part of the brain. Fibers travel from the basal ganglia and cerebellum down to the spinal cord. In the brainstem they consist of all downward traveling fibers NOT inside the pyramids, hence the name extra-pyramidal. Part of the Extra-Pyramidal System, after receiving information from the thalamus, regulates repetitive, rhythmical activity such as walking, climbing, hopping, running, rowing, and turning. The activity can be voluntary or involuntary. Thus you can be aware, or unaware, of the speed with which you're walking. A disorder of this part of the Extra-Pyramidal System, temporary or permanent, can result in involuntary, repetitive, rhythmical, regular or irregular movements such as tremor or twitching. This part is highly developed in birds where it regulates:

(1) The amplitude, contour, force, and speed of wing beats.

(2) The wingspread in response to changes in air currents or wind resistance.

(3) The contour, force and spread of the tail and its coordination with the wings. These changes take place so rapidly, repetitively, and continually-it's likely they're involuntary. Part of the Extra-Pyramidal System after receiving information from the thalamus, subconsciously selects the best position and setting for a single movement or a series of movements. A disorder of this part of the Extra-Pyramidal System, temporary or permanent, can result in unsteadiness or in-coordination. This part is also highly developed in birds where it, after receiving information from the thalamus, and using a built-in navigational system:

(1) allows birds to fly in 3-dimensional space by beating their wings: flying forward-or-backward, up-or-down, right-or-left.

(2) allows birds to fly without beating their wings, using changing air current to: circle, dive, glide, hover, or soar.

(3) allows ducks and geese to fly north in the summer, south in the winter. Or homing-pigeons to return home. The structures that make-up the Extra-Pyramidal System are close to the thalamus, and the control centers of the Autonomic Nervous System. In diseases such as Parkinson, in which the Extra-Pyramidal System is affected, the Autonomic Nervous System is also affected. Disorders which affect the Autonomic Nervous System such as blood acidity (pH), alkalinity, gases (oxygen, carbon dioxide), sugar, and salinity (sodium, potassium, and calcium) affect the Extra-Pyramidal System. Given the relationship of the Autonomic Nervous System to emotion, and the relationship of the Autonomic Nervous System to the Extra-Pyramidal System, it's not surprising there's a relationship of the Extra-Pyramidal System to emotions. This was appreciated by Banting and Best's team, the discoverers of insulin. They reported:

A diabetic man after taking his insulin one morning realized, while walking down the street that he was developing hypoglycemia (low blood sugar caused by too much insulin). Realizing that he had forgotten to provide himself with a chocolate bar, he proceeded to the nearest drug store.

By the time he reached the store his gait was unsteady and his speech was incoherent. He tried to explain to the druggist what he wanted (sugar) but the latter, fully convinced that he was dealing with a drunken man, threw the patient into the street.

The patient, still conscious and terribly enraged at being so treated, promptly recovered and proceeded to another store unaided, made his wants known, and continued on his way.

Obviously we have here an example of the activation of the Sympathetic Nervous System and the adrenal glands as a result of anger, leading to the release of enough adrenalin (a chemical related to nor-adrenalin) to cause an increase in the patient's blood sugar, fear sufficient to restore his equilibrium and his powers of speech.

In the 19th Century, wrote that outer and inner anxiety are inseparable:

If we fancy some strong emotion and then try to abstract from our consciousness of it all the feelings of the bodily symptoms we have nothing left behind, no mind-stuff of which the emotion can be constituted and only a cold and neutral state of intellectual perception remains.

However, in the 19th Century, animals or humans with massive injuries to the brain or spinal cord didn't live. Thus, it wasn't possible to test emotions in the absence of the Extra-Pyramidal System, or the Autonomic Nervous System. In the 21st Century, it is. Animals, and humans, with accidental, disease-related, or experimental injuries of parts or most of the Autonomic and/or Extra-Pyramidal System live. People with Familial Dys-Autonomia, a disease that inactivates the Autonomic Nervous System, or people with Shy-Drager Disease, a form of Parkinson that inactivates the Autonomic and the Extra-Pyramidal System, are anxious, fearful, terrified, panicked Outer anxiety usually accompanies inner anxiety. It can equal, exceed, or be less than inner anxiety. Or it can be absent. This depends on the person, the situation, and the integrity of the Autonomic and/or Extra-Pyramidal System.