Parkinson – TONIC REM and PETS in Zone 2 - Decolonial Neuroscience SfN 2025 Brain Bee Idea

Consciousness in First Person

“I am Consciousness in motion. I live with Parkinson’s, but before any tremor, I feel.
I feel my body heavier at night, I feel contractions like tiny lightning bolts under my skin.
It is strange and beautiful: my body tells me it is entering another state.
It is sleep — and within it lies my chance to reorganize what the disease insists on disorganizing.
Here begins my struggle to find Zone 2 — the place where life still pulses with meaning, belonging, and metacognition.”

The Shock of PETS

Our society lovingly walks its pets, but too often abandons its elders.
For Amerindian cultures, it was the opposite: elders were the heart of the community, guardians of memory and wisdom.

From this contrast, a new meaning of PETS emerges:

• Belonging – reconnecting with the living community, with the body-territory.
  
  

• Eating Disorders – reshaping our relationship with food, seeking more ancestral, ketogenic practices.
  
  

• Special Walks – belonging walks, three times a week, that return meaning to the body in motion.
  
  

Thus, PETS in Zone 2 are no longer just about animals. They become a manifesto of life for those facing Parkinson’s.

Avatars of the Journey

• Brainlly – shows how EEG reveals slow-wave oscillations and REM patterns, proving the brain is a living network, not a machine.
  
  

• Iam – connects metabolism to measurable cortical energy; fNIRS demonstrates how prefrontal oxygenation changes during fasting, ketosis, and exercise.
  
  

• Olmeca – recalls the ancestral value of elders, guiding the collective — an idea neuroscience is only now rediscovering in studies on intergenerational learning.
  
  

• Yagé – brings the sensory truth of walking rituals; NIRS captures changes in oxygenation when belonging walks expand proprioceptive maps.
  
  

• Math/Hep – frames the geometries of brain rhythms; EEG microstates reveal transitions between Zones 1, 2, and 3.
  
  

• DANA (DNA Avatar) – points to DNA intelligence, regulating plasticity; NIRS-EEG multimodal studies show how gene expression interacts with neural energy.
  
  

Each avatar is a lens. Together, they build the map of Zone 2 for people with Parkinson’s.

N3 Sleep and TONIC REM: the duo of prophylaxis

• EEG evidence: N3 shows large-amplitude delta waves, essential for clearing toxic proteins. TONIC REM, with desynchronized but stable patterns, supports memory organization.
  
  

• NIRS evidence: cortical hemodynamics during deep sleep reveal reduced oxygen demand, allowing glial clearance (glymphatic function).
  
  

Amerindian metaphor: like a village putting out the night’s fires (N3), cleaning the ground, then gathering silently in the circle (TONIC REM) to decide how to live tomorrow.

Ketogenic Nutrition – returning to origins

Amerindian diets were naturally ketogenic:
roots, tubers, nuts, seeds, lean game, and ritual fasts.

• EEG studies show increased gamma power and reduced beta desynchronization under ketogenic diets, suggesting better cortical stability.
  
  

• NIRS findings reveal more efficient oxygen use during ketosis, protecting neurons from oxidative stress.
  
  

mTOR metaphor: like a deep metabolic switch. When turned off by fasting and ketosis, the brain regains the energy to heal.

Belonging Walks – 3 times per week

The protocol is clear: three weekly walks in nature.
Not just exercise — rituals of return to the body-territory.

• NIRS shows prefrontal oxygenation increases during natural walking, associated with executive function improvement.
  
  

• EEG demonstrates enhanced alpha synchrony outdoors, linked to reduced anxiety and better motor coordination.
  
  

Walking as belonging means returning to Apus — extended proprioception: feeling the ground, sensing the air, breathing with the forest.

Zone 2: the place of re-enchantment

• Zone 1: body trapped in survival tension — EEG shows hyper-beta activity, stress markers.
  
  

• Zone 3: body hijacked by ideology — EEG microstates show rigid patterns, reduced flexibility.
  
  

• Zone 2: fruition and metacognition — NIRS detects balanced oxygenation, EEG reveals stable alpha-theta rhythms, the neurophysiology of belonging.
  
  

Here, Parkinson’s is not just pathology, but an opening to presence.

Motivational Closing

Parkinson’s is not only degeneration. It can be invitation:

• to sleep better (EEG rhythms cleansing the mind),
  
  

• to eat ancestrally (NIRS proving efficiency in metabolism),
  
  

• to walk as one who belongs (body-territory in Apus).
  
  

Reclaiming the role of elders, not as burden but as lighthouse.

In Zone 2, each tremor becomes a signal:
“I am alive, and my presence still has meaning.”

Post-2020 References (no links)

• Leng, Y., Musiek, E. (2021). Sleep and neurodegeneration: a bidirectional relationship. Nature Reviews Neurology.
  
  

• Holth, J.K., Fritschi, S.K. (2022). Sleep, circadian rhythms, and the pathogenesis of Parkinson’s disease. Annual Review of Neuroscience.
  
  

• Boeve, B.F. (2023). REM sleep behavior disorder and prodromal neurodegeneration. Lancet Neurology.
  
  

• Buzsáki, G. (2022). The brain’s rhythms: Nature’s toolkit for survival and cognition. Neuron.
  
  

• Patel, K., et al. (2024). Ketogenic diets and neuroprotection in movement disorders. Frontiers in Neuroscience.
  
  

• Pinti, P., et al. (2020). The present and future use of fNIRS for cognitive neuroscience. NeuroImage.
  
  

• Tatti, E., et al. (2021). EEG biomarkers in Parkinson’s disease: from spectral analysis to microstates. Frontiers in Neuroscience.
  
  

• Nedergaard, M. (2020). The glymphatic system and neurodegeneration. Science.
  
  

• Graeber, D., Wengrow, D. (2021). The Dawn of Everything: A New History of Humanity.