Enhancing dopamine and GABA

[ontherocks421]

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Hello!

Are there any ways to enhance dopamine and GABA through brain surgery?

I see how people with naturally low levels of dopamine suffer from all sorts of mental illnesses - and how their lives drastically improve when these levels are boosted, for instance through benzodiazepines. That is, until tolerance and side-effects catches up with them.

There must be a way of triggering longer lasting dopaine and GABA enhancements without any side-effects?

Herman Jackson

 

[deleted357625]

Hello!

Are there any ways to enhance dopamine and GABA through brain surgery?

I see how people with naturally low levels of dopamine suffer from all sorts of mental illnesses - and how their lives drastically improve when these levels are boosted, for instance through benzodiazepines. That is, until tolerance and side-effects catches up with them.

There must be a way of triggering longer lasting dopaine and GABA enhancements without any side-effects?

Herman Jackson

Not sure, all I know is for example Parkinson patients have a reduced amount of dopamine and are treated with Ldopa the precursor to dopamine which enhances dopamine levels, a result can be psychosis and other characteristics of schizophrenia since schizophrenia is hypothesized to have high levels of dopamine.

Neurotransmitters and levels are all homeostatic systems, too much or too low can cause problems. Finding the right amount to help is the hard part

 

[nuance]

Hello!

Are there any ways to enhance dopamine and GABA through brain surgery?

I see how people with naturally low levels of dopamine suffer from all sorts of mental illnesses - and how their lives drastically improve when these levels are boosted, for instance through benzodiazepines. That is, until tolerance and side-effects catches up with them.

There must be a way of triggering longer lasting dopaine and GABA enhancements without any side-effects?

Herman Jackson

Benzodiazepines have nothing to do with dopamine. They also have nothing to do with GABA levels, rather they increase the effectiveness of already existing GABA (by increasing the frequency of the Cl- channel opening after GABA binds). They don't increase the levels of GABA. All of this information can be found in the link you provided.

To answer your question: the only thing I can think of is Deep Brain Stimulation, but (to my knowledge) that only stops dopminergic cell loss--it doesn't actually produce any more dopamine. Try searching on google scholar for "deep brain stimulation dopamine" or "deep brain stimulation gaba". Also, any form of brain surgery will have a risk of side-effects or complications.

Disclaimer: I am merely a pre-med with a degree in molecular neurobio. So I could be wrong.