Behavioral impulsivity and hallucinations : insights from Parkinson's disease

Parkinson's disease (PD) is an age-related degenerative disease of the brain, characterized by motor, cognitive, and psychiatric symptoms. Neurologists and neuroscientists now understand that several symptoms of the disease, including hallucinations and impulse control behaviors, stem from the dopaminergic medications used to control the motor aspects of PD. Not all patients experience these nonmotor symptoms and tools that can predict a priori which patients are likely to have an adverse response to medication do not exist. This thesis begins to fill this gap by elucidating the mechanisms underlying the adverse effects of dopaminergic medications. Converging evidence from animals and humans shows that individual differences in particular genes that affect the dopamine system may alter the response of PD patients to dopaminergic medication. We examined the hypothesis that patients taking dopamine replacement therapy who carry candidate alleles that increase dopamine signaling experience a dopamine overdose, causing unwanted psychiatric symptoms.

Department dc:contributor.department

Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Dept. of Brain and Cognitive Sciences.

Grantor dc:publisher

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Year dc:date.issued

2011

Author dc:creator

• Ashourian, Paymon

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Suzanne Corkin.

• Brain and Cognitive Sciences.

Statement dc:rights

• M.I.T. theses are protected by copyright. They may be viewed from this source for any purpose, but reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without written permission. See provided URL for inquiries about permission.

Licence dc:rights.uri

• http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/7582

Language dc:language.iso

eng

Handle dc:identifier.uri

http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/68418

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:dspace.mit.edu:1721.1/68418