Arvid Carlsson life and biography

Arvid Carlsson is a Swedish scientist who is best known for his work with the neurotransmitter dopamine and its effects in Parkinson's disease. For his work on dopamine, Carlsson was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 2000, along with co-recipients Eric Kandel and Paul Greengard.

Prior to Arvid Carlsson's work, dopamine was believed to work only indirectly, by stimulating brain cells to form another neurotransmitter, noradrenaline. Carlsson showed that dopamine is itself a neurotransmitter, leading to the development of levodopa (L-Dopa), a drug now widely prescribed for patients suffering from Parkinson's disease. He shared the 2000 Nobel Prize in Medicine with Paul Greengard, who conducted related research independently, and with Eric R. Kandel, who studied the molecular basis of learning and memory.

Concerned about the toxicity of fluoride, Carlsson is an outspoken opponent of the practice, common in most developed nations, of adding fluoride to drinking water to improve dental health.

Carlsson developed a method for measuring the amount of dopamine in brain tissues. He found that dopamine levels in the basal ganglia, a brain area important for movement, were particularly high. He then showed that giving animals the drug reserpine caused a decrease in dopamine levels and a loss of movement control. These effects were similar to the symptoms of Parkinson's disease. By administering to these animals L-Dopa, which is the precursor of dopamine, he could alleviate the symptoms. These findings led other doctors to try using L-Dopa on patients with Parkinson's disease, and found it to alleviate some of the symptoms in the early stages of the disease. L-Dopa is still the basis for most commonly used means of treating Parkinson's disease.

Awards:

Wolf Prize in Medicine 1979
Japan Prize 1994
Nobel Prize for Medicine 2000 (with Paul Greengard and Eric R. Kandel)
National Academy of Sciences

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