Dr. Mark D'Esposito

I think if you think about it as just more and more and more is better, and that more is better, then there's really no end.

How do you know how much you should be taking?

That experiment was run in the 80s.

Right, right.

So I'm all for optimizing function.

I want to optimize brain health.

And if you have an underactive enzyme that makes your dopamine levels, then I'm all for trying to optimize that along with everything else we need to optimize in the brain.

So if we could figure out who is sort of on the lower end and boost them up, I'm all for that.

The problem is we don't know if they're on the high end

And some of these athletes were actually making themselves worse.

We know for sure.

I mean, these are healthy Penn and Berkeley undergraduates that we made them worse on working memory tests.

By increasing their dopamine.

By increasing their dopamine.

Just a little amount.

Just tipped them over just a little amount.

And so, you know, without the knowing, then it just seems like it's not well-informed.

You're going to be taking it.

The other thing is, if we're going to do this, we should do it right.

I think drugs like Adderall and Ritalin, you know, they were developed because they helped patients, but they weren't necessarily developed with knowing how exactly they worked.