Arvid Carlsson

Arvid Carlsson was born on January 25, 1923, in Uppsala, the son of history professor Gottfrid Carlsson. Educated in medicine at the University of Lund, he joined the laboratory of Bernard Brodie at the National Institutes of Health in the United States before becoming Professor of Pharmacology at the University of Gothenburg in 1959.

In the late 1950s, challenging prevailing scientific dogma that dopamine was merely an inert chemical precursor of norepinephrine, Carlsson demonstrated that dopamine is an active neurotransmitter concentrated in the basal ganglia. He proved that administering L-DOPA reversed parkinsonian tremors in reserpine-treated animals, revolutionizing neurology and psychiatric drug development. In 2000, he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine alongside Paul Greengard and Eric Kandel.