L-dopa

In one condition, the release of dopamine was pharmacologically increased by L-dopa, a precursor of dopamine.

Blossoming, because the people have been “awakened” from the long-lingering effects of encephalitis lethargica — the “sleeping sickness” — by the miracle drug L-dopa, which Sacks administers to them experimentally.

When it enters the brain, L-dopa is converted into dopamine, a neurotransmitter that is in short supply in Parkinson's patients.

A doctor tries the drug L-dopa on an immobile man and others like him in 1969 New York.

Parkinson’s patients are often commonly treated with the medication L-dopa, which comes from the plant Mucuna pruriens.