Parkinson's Disease

Parkinson's is a movement disorder, but not importantly in the reward circuit. People have normal dopamine firing levels in the reward circuitry. Dopamine itself would do nothing to you because it doesn't cross the blood brain barrier. But if I were to give you this precursor L-Dopa, it does cross the bloodbrain barrier. And it helps with Parkinson's because it's replenishing the depletion of dopamine in the substantia nigra. Unfortunately, it's not going to just act on the substantia Nigra. It will also act on the reward circuitry and can lead to addictive behaviors like gambling or shopping.

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