A window on the role of dopamine in addiction disorders
- Departments of Neurology and Psychiatry and Biobehavioral Sciences, UCLA School of Medicine, Department of Neurology, 710 Westwood Plaza, Los Angeles, CA, USA cummings@ucla.cdu
The paper Hedonistic homeostatic dysregulation in patients with Parkinson's disease on dopamine replacement therapies by Giovannoni et al in this issue of the Journal (pp423–8 ) 1 provides an important new perspective on the neurobiology of addiction.
These investigators have studied a small number of patients with Parkinson's disease who develop features of addiction to dopamine replacement therapy. The patients were mostly men with early onset Parkinson's disease responsive to dopaminergic therapy. They showed an increasing need for dopaminergic treatment in excess of that normally required to relieve parkinsonian signs and symptoms. …
