Reading Quest 1:

Do any other types of medicines affect decision making?

In the very beginning of How We Decide’s third chapter, I found the story of Ann Klinestiver’s medicine induced gambling addiction.  This fascinated me and made me question side-effects of all medications used by me and others.  I wonder if the Parkinson’s disease medication Requip is the only kind of prescription drug that is known to alter a person’s decision making ability.

Before I got started looking for other medicines, I decided I should research Requip further.  I thought it was interesting to find that dopamine agonists not only affect a person’s desire to gamble, but also can cause compulsive eating habits and increase a person’s sex drive.  This could cause people taking the medication to make uncharacteristic and even potentially physically dangerous, as well as financially and emotionally devastating.  I also discovered that Mirapex, an FDA approved medication used for similar treatment, was known for the same side-effects.

I began to look up mind altering prescription medications and found most drugs treating psychological issues, such as medication for depression and bipolar disorder, can change how the brain makes decisions, but it is far more rare for medicines focusing on physical issues have the same effect.  Dopamine agonists like Requip seemed to be some of the few. 

In fact, as I searched further for drugs that seriously altered decision making the way Requip did, I could not find any.  While many medications can alter the mind in strange ways, nothing affects it like dopamine agonists.