There are expert voices: Cambridge University neuropsychiatry professor Valerie Voon explains that dopamine can alter how we balance reward – the high – with the risk of getting it. Titheradge finds a 2003 internal report for the pharmaceutical company GSK, which manufactures ropinirole. It focused on 15 cases of patients who had exhibited “deviant sexual behaviour” while using the drug. One sexually assaulted a seven-year-old and was jailed.

Titheradge acknowledges that dopamine agonist drugs can help those with Parkinson’s (they’re also prescribed for restless leg syndrome and, in a different form, for bipolar disorder and paranoid schizophrenia). GSK did not appear in the series. There is a written statement: “Ropinirol has undergone extensive clinical trials and has been prescribed for more than 7m treatments and subject to three decades of regulatory scrutiny.” It added: “Reports of these side-effects were shared with regulatory authorities in a timely way. While a single adverse event can trigger a review to a medicine’s labelling, a key factor is whether a pattern or trend has started to emerge.” Those whose lives have allegedly been destroyed – partially or completely – by these drugs, deserve better: that is the message heard loud and clear on the podcast.” EXCERPTED FROM https://observer.co.uk/culture/audio/article/shadow-world-impulsive-looks-into-the-lives-destroyed-by-a-dopamine-drug