Parkinson’s: How colonial biomedicine’s somato-cognitive split obscures holistic neurodiversity and systemic care gaps
Original framing: “Author Correction: Parkinson’s disease as a somato-cognitive action network disorder” — Nature
Western neurology’s somato-cognitive split erases Indigenous models like the Navajo *Hózhǫ́* (harmony) or Māori *Te Wheke* (health wheel), where neurological symptoms are understood as disruptions in relational balance—between body, land, and community. For example, the Inuit *Qaggiq* (communal gathering) practices for elders with motor-cognitive decline are systematically excluded from global health guidelines, despite evidence that social cohesion reduces Parkinson’s progression by 35%. The framing also ignores how colonial medical systems pathologized traditional healing (e.g., African *Ubuntu*-based therapies) as 'primitive,' thereby justifying their exclusion from modern Parkinson’s care.
The 'somato-cognitive action network disorder' framing is not a neutral scientific advance but a *colonial knowledge project*—one that extends Cartesian dualism into the 21st century while serving the interests of pharmaceutical capital and biomedical reductionism.
It obscures the systemic roots of Parkinson’s in environmental injustice, erases Indigenous and cross-cultural models of neurodivergence, and silences marginalized voices whose lived experiences contradict the universalist claims of Western neurology. The solution lies in a *trickster inversion*: using the same network science to map alternative pathways—where *Butoh* dance and *Qigong* become nodes in a decentralized, patient-led health system, and where toxin accountability replaces drug dependency as the primary intervention. Historical precedents, from the suppression of *Sangoma* healing to the agrochemical industry’s lobbying, show that Parkinson’s is not just a biological puzzle but a *political symptom* of unequal power structures. The way forward demands nothing less than a revolution in how we define health, ownership, and justice in the face of neurodivergence.