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In theory, wouldn't Levodopa or isolated dopamine be the best drug ever?

My theory is as follows. People abuse illegal drugs for the functional effect of which works via the manipulation and dramatic increase in the release of dopamine levels in the brain. Would it then correlate to infer that if a person took isolated dopamine or a similar substance like Levodopa (used for Parkinson's patients) , it would totally cut out the "middleman" and most of the other ghastly effects of illicit drugs and cause pure sensations of thrill/excitement/pleasure/well-being? Since people do illegal drugs and abuse Rx drugs because ultimately it jacks up their dopamine levels to the point where it feels good, wouldn't doing straight dopamine be a lot more effective?

Public Comments

1. Physiologically, it's considerably more complex than that. So, straight dopamine is not the perfect drug.
2. No, for a few different reasons. First dopamine won't cross the blood brain barrier - it can't get into the brain unless it's placed directly into the brain via injection (ouch!). L-dopa can cross the blood-brain barrier. Once into the brain, it is converted into dopamine. This is why it's used to treat Parkinson's (where neurons that use dopamine as their neurotransmitter die). L-dopa can improve mood, but the high isn't nearly as intense as drugs such as cocaine or amphetamines. These drugs work on neurons using several neurotransmitters (dopamine, norepinephrine, & serotonin). All of these neurotransmitters are involved in mood. Finally, increasing dopamine levels in the brain isn't harmless. There's quite a scientific literature showing that excess dopamine molecules are converted into quinones. Quinones are known to have neurotoxic actions and end up killing the same neurons that die during Parkinson's disease.
3. No. Dopamine is a commonly used infusion, and it doesn't work like that. Moreover, if you could figure a way to infuse directly into the appropriate areas of the brain, it still wouldn't work. It's a shame life isn't so simple.
4. As stated by the previous posters, the answer to your question is complex; nonetheless, it is a very interesting one! My answer here is simplified by necessity but should help further your understanding ... Levodopa (a.k.a. L-DOPA, which passes into the brain and is enzymatically metabolized to dopamine) does not produce a "high" like certain other drugs, even though it stimulates dopamine receptors. This is explained in part by the existance of several different subtypes of dopamine receptors, not all of which play a role in the "reward centre" of the brain. Stimulation of dopamine receptors in the nucleus accumbens, for example, causes pleasure; however stimulation of dopamine in other brain regions cause panic. Different subtypes of dopamine receptors are found in different parts of the brain, so drugs that selectively stimulate particular dopamine subtypes stimulate different brain regions and can produce different subjective emotions. Drugs stimulate or inhibit a variety of receptors in the brain which in turn modulate the firing of neurons, all of which are interconnected to other neurons in very complex (and mostly unknown) ways. In the brain, neurons activate or inhibit the firing of other neurons ... hundreds of millions of them at a time, to create subjective experiences like pleasure. L-DOPA does not cause a high because dopamine stimulates dopamine receptors globally throughout the brain; it is the response of cerebral neurons to the presence of a particular molecule/drug (and not the complexity of the drug itself) that determines whether or not it will elicit a high. Many drugs, e.g. morphine, are capable of causing a high; indeed, synthetic analogues of of these drugs, e.g. diacetyl morphine (a.k.a. diamorphine, heroin) can also produce a high, but not for the simple reason that they directly activate dopamine receptors. Heroin crosses the blood-brain barrier and is enzymatically converted to the active chemical, morphine, which enhances dopamine *release* in the nucleus accumbens by stimulating dopamine-releasing neurons which fire when morphine binds to mu receptors on these neurons in the brain).
5. simple answer. no. it might work for a while. the problem would be that you would have to increase the dosage periodically to maintain the same effect. eventually the receptors would become saturated and stop responding no matter the dosage. an example to check out would be the work of Oliver Sacks.. in 1969 he used L-Dopa in a clinical trial for encephalitis patients from the 1920's. it worked for a while but eventually stopped.
6. I would certainly give you credit for that bit of nonsense on how to make illegal drugs legal. You sound like prohibition when alcohol was illegal so we made it legal and have suffered the consequences of alcoholism, DUI, vehicular manslaughter, indigent drunks, neglected children, etc. Yes, do what you suggest and make every physician the source of your next high.