Brush stroke a path with thin-thick-thin in Photoshop

So i know I can use brush simulate a brush stroke from thin-thick-thin and thick to thin with the fade option .

Is there a way to simulate a brush stroke so the path will have thick end points and thin middle. I mean with out a tablet of some sort.

In addition, can i brush a path starting from the end point and not from the start anchor point?

If there is no way to do it in Photoshop, can I do something similar in Illustrator?

Thank you