Looking up into the dictionary I see that ながら is a particle, not familiar with that concept I just know that it connects to verbs and means "while" introducing a new event clause.

But there is lot of similar words to express the same idea : まま、際に、とき、どうじに、加えて which are all adverb types.

Is ながら of the same type? Could you technically use it at the start of a sentence?  

If not could you please provide an example of where you use ながら where you can't interchangeably use an adverb from the list above?