The materials you are responsible for are listed below. I would, of course, encourage you to browse through the other topics under Drug Therapies, including the several new drug approvals in the past 5 years (several new formulations of levodopa and amantadine, as well as, more importantly, 2 new first-in-class drugs: droxidopa and pimavanserin, for orthostatic hypotension and psychosis associated with Parkinson’s, respectively).
Physiological Basis of Parkinson’s
Drug Therapies
Intro to levodopa |
Why must patients take levodopa so frequently? |
What are the major side effects of levodopa? |
Intro to MAO-B inhibitors |
Intro to dopamine agonists |
We will also be doing an in-class exercise on optimizing levodopa dosing, using information from the Advanced Levodopa Pharmacokinetics page and LevodopaLevel.com.