User talk:Rhoffing/sandbox

The new sections of this article look better than the original, and make sense when looking at similar articles. As it is now, some of the points under the "Dorsal Striatum" section might make more sense if put in different sections, or maybe subsections:

1. "Loss of dopamine neurons in the substantia nigra is one of the main pathological features of Parkinson's disease,[2] leading to a marked reduction in dopamine function in this pathway. The symptoms of the disease typically do not show themselves until 80-90% of dopamine function has been lost."

2. "This pathway is also implicated in producing tardive dyskinesia, one of the side-effects of antipsychotic drugs. These medications (in particular the older typical antipsychotics) block D2 dopamine receptors in multiple pathways in the brain."

3. "The desired clinical effect of reducing psychotic symptoms is thought to be associated with blocking dopamine function in the mesolimbic pathway only. However, as many of these drugs are not selective, they block dopamine in all pathways. When this happens in the nigrostriatal pathway, similar movement problems to those found in Parkinson's disease can occur."

Possible additions: - Section/subsection on the role of the nigrostriatal pathway in Parkinson's? - Section/subsection on the role of the nigrostriatal pathway in tardive dyskinesia? - Add a section on medications that interfere with the nigrostriatal pathway.

Alternatively, maybe these three points could go under the more general "Clinical significance" section with subsections for each disorder? More information about drugs that affect the NSB may fit here too.

--Posner.c (talk) 00:38, 28 March 2016 (UTC)

Peer Review
Thank you to my reviewers Posner.C and IamTheStudent for their in class and online comments towards my draft. Overall, I've reformatted most of the existing material into new sections. I've elaborated on the anatomy of the pathway, Parkinson's, and made the initial summary of the page simpler to read and shorter. I removed the section on tardive dykinesia as I could not find enough sources to back-up the role of the nigrostriatal pathway and it's involvement in that disorder, though I did introduce the section on levodopa-induced dykinesia. Rhoffing (talk) 23:19, 11 April 2016 (UTC)

Context Memo
Here's the link to the edited article: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nigrostriatal_Pathway

Overall I made the formatting clearer on the newer version and added more information and citations. I also removed work that was not adequately cited and changed around some of the wording.

Even though my contribution is small I really enjoy the idea that I have contributed to enormous encyclopedia. I think it's really cool that reworking a minor article like this is still improving the database and adding to a collective knowledge. Eventually someone will come along and read what I wrote in this article and I'm really excited to be part of that.

There is quite a bit of work to be done on neuroscience topics on Wikipedia. Even major, and well-known brain structures (not even just a basic pathway like this) are not rated well and could use refining. I want to continue to be active on Wikipedia so that maybe my article or future articles will be used as a template for others and that neuroscience information becomes more available to the public. Adding to the Nigrostriatal pathway was very slight, but now that I know how to edit I can start working on a lot more topics and make the information more concise and accessible. Rhoffing (talk) 03:57, 12 April 2016 (UTC)