Could taking a pill make us more compassionate? In a new study at the University of California, Berkeley, researchers found people were more willing to distribute money equally when they were given tolcapone, an FDA-approved drug used to treat Parkinson’s disease. Co-author Dr. Andrew Kayser says that participants were given either tolcapone or a placebo and played a simple economic game in which they divided money between themselves and an anonymous partner.
“When people took the tolcapone, as compared to when they took the sugar pill, they didn’t change how much money they gave away, but they did change how equal the distributions were. So we found that when people were on tolcapone, they wanted the distribution of the money to be more equal than when they were on the sugar pill.”
Kayser says he hopes the study could potentially lead to better treatments for mental illnesses and other disabling conditions.
“Social dysfunction is reasonably widespread and we don’t have great treatments for it. And so our hope is that we can add another arrow to the quiver, so to speak.”
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