Are we moving beyond Levodopa for Parkinson’s Disease? By Kathleen Hoffman, PhD, MSPH In November, the American Academy of Neurologists (AAN) updated their 2002 guidelines for treatment of Parkinson’s Disease (PD) with dopaminergic drugs (drugs that improve dopamine release). The preeminent drug for treatment of early Parkinson’s, levodopa, creates the dopamine neurotransmitter that people with Parkinson’s progressively lack. Despite the fact that levodopa was approved to treat Parkinson’s over fifty years ago, the updated guidelines reaffirm that levodopa combined with carbidopa is still the best first-line treatment for motor symptoms of early PD when compared with the [...]