Arvid Carlsson

Arvid Carlsson (born 25 January 1923) is a Swedish neuropharmacologist 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.^[2][3]

Carlsson was born in Uppsala, Sweden, son of Gottfrid Carlsson, historian and later professor of history at the Lund University, where he began his medical education in 1941. In 1944 he was participating in the task of examining prisoners of Nazi concentration camps, whom Folke Bernadotte, a member of the royal Swedish family, had managed to bring to Sweden. Although Sweden was neutral during World War II, Carlsson's education was interrupted by several years of service in the Swedish Armed Forces. In 1951, he received his M.L. degree and his M.D. He then became a professor at the University of Lund. In 1959 he became a professor at the University of Gothenburg.

In 1957 Kathleen Montagu succeeded in demonstrating the presence of dopamine in the human brain; later that same year Carlsson also demonstrated that dopamine was a neurotransmitter in the brain and not just a precursor for norepinephrine.^[4][5] Carlsson went on to 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.^[2]

While working at Astra AB, Carlsson and his colleagues were able to derive the first marketed selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor, zimelidine, from brompheniramine.^[2] Zimelidine preceded both Fluoxetine (Prozac) and Fluvoxamine as the first SSRI, but was later withdrawn from the market due to rare cases of Guillain–Barré syndrome.^[6]

Carlsson is opposed to the fluoridation of drinking water,^[7][8][9] and lobbied in Sweden to make water fluoridation illegal.^[10]

Still an active researcher and speaker at over 90 years of age, Carlsson, together with his daughter Maria, is working^[11] on OSU6162, a dopamine stabilizer alleviating symtoms of post-stroke fatigue.^[12]

References

External links

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• Nobel Prize Biography
• The Sahlgrenska Academy at the University of Gothenburg

Swedish Nobel laureates
Chemistry	1903: Svante Arrhenius 1926: Theodor Svedberg 1929: Hans von Euler-Chelpin 1948: Arne Tiselius 2015: Tomas Lindahl
Literature	1909: Selma Lagerlöf 1916: Verner von Heidenstam 1931: Erik Axel Karlfeldt (posthumously) 1951: Pär Lagerkvist 1966: Nelly Sachs 1974: Eyvind Johnson / Harry Martinson 2011: Tomas Tranströmer
Peace	1908: Klas Pontus Arnoldson 1921: Hjalmar Branting 1930: Nathan Söderblom 1961: Dag Hammarskjöld (posthumously) 1982: Alva Myrdal
Physics	1912: Gustaf Dalén 1924: Manne Siegbahn 1970: Hannes Alfvén 1981: Kai Siegbahn
Physiology or Medicine	1911: Allvar Gullstrand 1955: Hugo Theorell 1967: Ragnar Granit 1970: Ulf von Euler 1981: Torsten Wiesel 1982: Sune Bergström / Bengt I. Samuelsson 2000: Arvid Carlsson
Economic Sciences	1974: Gunnar Myrdal 1977: Bertil Ohlin