Some of the replies are great, others not so much. selegiline? nicotine? Yeah right. One should not use these substance unless there is no other choice (like late stage parkinsons). Nicotine is neurotoxic.
Cdp choline, to my knowledge, increases dopamine receptors, not upregulates existing ones. There is no need to cycle it with tyrosine. In fact, it will only take longer to have an effect at all. It is more or less pointless in any case, since tyrosine hydroxylase controls how much tyrosine gets converted into l-dopa, therefore the brain does not need this secondary regulatory mechanism of reducing dopamine receptors.
If one wants to increase dopamine production the FIRST step would be to supply all cofactors(b6, folate, enough calcium in the diet) and upregualtors of tyrosine hydroxylase such as vitamin d3(Don't know of any others).
If that is not enough, you can supplement with phenylalanine and tyrosine. phenylalanine gets in part converted into phenylethylamine, which increases dopamine and noradrenaline, while it also gets converted into tyrosine. tyrosine is the direct precursor to l-dopa which in turn gets converted to dopamine directly. However, chronic and higher dosage tyrosine can deplete the sulfur stores of the body, leading to very nasty problems so I do not recommend it.
so if step 1 (cofactors and upregulator) does not work, go to step 2, precursors.
And if this still does not work, you can move on to mucuna pruriens seed powder (NO EXTRACT!!!! NO STANDARDIZED TO OVER 6% l-dopa POWDER!!!). If you take that, you do not need to take tyrosine anymore, while phenylalanine might still be beneficial. There is a lot of discussion going on about mucuna and its differences to l-dopa, check my posts and replies by others, as well as examine.com page on mucuna, and the human studies to draw your own conclusion. Interestingly though, I have not experienced sulfur depletion symptoms with mucuna as I did with tyrosine.
In ALL stages you can use supplements that increase dopamine receptor count, and/or sensitivity. Only at the sages of mucuna pruriens, dopamine receptor downregulation should be possible, but I experienced no such thing as it would be expected with pure l-dopa.
All of this is more save, natural, and effective then selegiline or nicotine, with mucuna being controversal and highly different, depending on if you use an extract(bad) or whole bean powder...
What I am describing here is pretty much just supporting the bodies natural metabolism, in steps that determine your individual need for more dopamine / catecholamines, with mucuna being the potentially most intrusive way since it contains l-dopa. So the body can still protect itself from what you are doing, like downregulating receptors, using mao enzymes to degrade neurotransmitters, and with the exception of mucuna, downregulate l-dopa conversion in the first place.
By using stimulants, or reuptake inhibitors, you disable important protective mechanisms of the brain, leading to possible brain damage. ritalin and co may cause parkinson in the long term, mao inhibitors have nasty side effects too and you have to watch what you eat (depening on the type of mao inhibitor - a or b, reversible or irreversible, in case of the latter, you have to watch your nutrition for weeks after discontinuing it)
There is no evidence of egcg being a dopamine decarboxylase inhibitor, that does NOT cross the bbb, right? That means that dopaminergic effects in the brain will be reduced, because dopamine can form nowhere in the body, including the brain. It is the point of a dopa decarboxylase inhibitor that it does NOT cross the bbb so l-dopa can only be converted to dopamine in the brain. However, long term this should lead to more dopamine receptors in the whole body because it starves for dopamine. But in the mean time, expect less, and not more dopaminergic effects. And once you stop it, dopamine receptor density will most likely return to normal for most individuals.
Gonna check out Gynostemma
Edit: LOL!!! Gyno is the plant my girlfriend is giving to her guinea pig after it hat an ischemic stroke. It recovered fully, did not have another one up to this day. She always told me to look into it more... Its easy to grow too.
Edited by BioFreak, 25 April 2013 - 08:30 AM.
