Study: Parkinson's drug L-DOPA makes brains discount bad news
aakashgupta · x · 2026-10-25
London researchers gave 21 healthy adults L-DOPA, a common Parkinson's drug, then showed them their real odds of outcomes like cancer. 76% took the bad news less seriously than on a sugar pill, while good news landed the same.
L-DOPA simply gives the brain more dopamine to work with—meaning the "that won't happen to me" voice partly runs on dopamine, and more of it makes the voice louder.
The same lab found an off switch: magnetic pulses quieting the inferior frontal gyrus in the left frontal lobe. Normally 90-100% of people in comparison groups soak up good news and brush off bad; with that region quieted, only 40% still did.
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