{"id":209222,"date":"2025-03-20T10:09:46","date_gmt":"2025-03-20T15:09:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2025\/03\/levodopa-may-improve-motivation-in-depression-linked-to-high-inflammation"},"modified":"2025-03-20T10:09:46","modified_gmt":"2025-03-20T15:09:46","slug":"levodopa-may-improve-motivation-in-depression-linked-to-high-inflammation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2025\/03\/levodopa-may-improve-motivation-in-depression-linked-to-high-inflammation","title":{"rendered":"Levodopa may improve motivation in depression linked to high inflammation"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a class=\"aligncenter blog-photo\" href=\"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog.images\/levodopa-may-improve-motivation-in-depression-linked-to-high-inflammation.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>A study from Emory University suggests that levodopa, a medication that increases dopamine levels in the brain, may help treat individuals with depression who experience motivational impairments due to high inflammation. Researchers found that a common blood test measuring C-reactive protein (CRP), a blood biomarker of inflammation produced by the liver, could help determine which patients are most likely to respond to repeated doses of levodopa.<\/p>\n<p>The findings, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sciencedirect.com\/science\/article\/abs\/pii\/S0889159125000194\" target=\"_blank\">published<\/a> in the March 2025 print edition of <i>Brain, Behavior and Immunity<\/i>, show that in participants with CRP levels above 2 mg\/L, daily administration of levodopa improved connectivity within a key brain reward pathway\u2014the <a href=\"https:\/\/medicalxpress.com\/tags\/ventral+striatum\/\" rel=\"tag\" class=\"\">ventral striatum<\/a> to the <a href=\"https:\/\/medicalxpress.com\/tags\/ventromedial+prefrontal+cortex\/\" rel=\"tag\" class=\"\">ventromedial prefrontal cortex <\/a>\u2014after just one week of treatment across a range of doses.<\/p>\n<p>While about half of the participants responded best to a lower dose of 150 mg\/day, the other half required up to 450 mg\/day for levodopa to effectively overcome the effects of inflammation on this dopamine-rich reward circuit.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A study from Emory University suggests that levodopa, a medication that increases dopamine levels in the brain, may help treat individuals with depression who experience motivational impairments due to high inflammation. Researchers found that a common blood test measuring C-reactive protein (CRP), a blood biomarker of inflammation produced by the liver, could help determine which [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":732,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,47],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-209222","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-biotech-medical","category-neuroscience"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/209222","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/732"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=209222"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/209222\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=209222"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=209222"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=209222"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}