Dr. Melissa J. Nirenberg

Melissa J. Nirenberg, MD, PhD Assistant Professor Neurology and Neuroscience Weill Cornell Medical College

- Melissa J Nirenberg, MD, PhD, Assistant Professor of Neurology, Weill Cornell Medical College, New York, New York

Melissa J. Nirenberg, MD, PhD Assistant Professor Neurology and Neuroscience Weill Cornell Medical College
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Assistant editor Dana Leifer, MD and author Melissa J. Nirenberg, MD, PhD report no financial relationship relevant to this field of study.

Melissa Nirenberg, MD Assistant Professor of Neurology Weill Cornell College of Medicine;
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Authors Gregg L. Caporaso, MD, PhD, Sabiha Merchant, MD, Joseph E. Safdieh, MD, and Melissa Nirenberg, MD report no financial relationship relevant to this field of study.

Melissa J. Nirenberg, MD, PhD Assistant Professor Neurology and Neuroscience Weill Cornell Medical College
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Peer reviewer Gerald Roberts, MD, associate editors Eileen C. West, MD, Mary Elina Ferris, William T. Elliott, MD, FACP, James Chan, PhD, PharmD, and Ken Grauer, MD, and authors Frank W. Ling, MD and Melissa J. Nirenberg, MD, PhD report no financial relationship to this field of study.

Several studies have shown that medications that mimic dopamine, a brain chemical, have been linked to hypersexuality and other impulse-control disorders, such as overeating, compulsive gambling and compulsive shopping, said Dr. Melissa J. Nirenberg, an assistant professor of neurology at Cornell Medical Center in New York.
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Nirenberg, who specializes in treating Parkinson's patients, authored a study that linked a class of medications known as dopamine agonists to impulse control disorders in Parkinson's patients.

Dopamine, naturally produced in the body, controls several important brain processes, including the ability to experience pleasure and pain.Persons with Parkinson's disease have too little of the chemical, which causes the hallmark symptoms of the disease, including tremors, rigidity and slowness, Nirenberg said.

To treat the disease, physicians can prescribe a dopamine agonist, which mimics the effect of dopamine, or a separate class of medication that turns into dopamine once inside the body.The problem with both medications, Nirenberg said, is that it's difficult to know exactly how they will work within a particular person.That means dopamine levels become too high in some cases, causing the person's drive to experience pleasure to go overboard.

"The drive to do something is increased and the willpower to stop doing it is simultaneously decreased," she said.
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Nirenberg stressed she is not McDade's physician and therefore does not know whether his alleged activity might have been caused by medication.She said that possibility is certainly something that should be explored, however.Dopamine replacement remains the primary treatment for Parkinson's, so it's highly likely he is being treated with the drug.

"There have been other reported cases of very inappropriate sexual behavior, particularly in upstanding individuals - people who this is the last thing you would imagine," she said