The Awakening.

In the movie "The Awakening" Dr.Sayer did an experimental case study on Leonard who was a catatonic patient. Before Dr.Sayer received the job at the hospital all of the other doctor's had pretty much given up on Leonard and the others like him because the other doctors didn't think that Leonard and the others were responsive. But, it was Dr.Sayer that came to realization that with certain stimuli Leonard responded. Leonard was able to catch a ball thrown at him, recognize familiar music, and communicate with Dr.Sayer by using a Ouija board. After attending a seminar about the use of the drug L-Dopa on Parkinson's disease, Sayer soon's starts to think that maybe the drug will have an affect on his catatonic patients. Dr.Sayer decides to use the drug and do a trial on Leonard which causes him to completely awaken from his catatonic state. Since, the drug had such an astounding effect on Leonard Dr.Sayer gave the drug to the other catatonic patients which gave them the same result as it had with Leonard. In this case study the L-Dopa drug acted as an agonist which caused the drug to mimic a neurotransmitter that the body lacked. In doing so the drug took the place of the neurotransmitter. Since, the drug took the place of the original neurotransmitter this eventually caused the brain to stop producing other neurotransmitter as well as the one the drug replaced. The drug flooded the brain with too many chemicals causing the original positive effects to back fire on itself thus causing the brain and Leonard to go back into their original catatonic state. I personally think that Dr.Sayer did put Leonard in harm but i also believe that Dr.Sayer's behavior was ethical and not meant to cause harm to Leonard. This is because this case study took place in the late 1960's and not a lot of research and studies had been done on this drug or on the effects. Dr.Sayer had no way of knowing the outcome of the drug. So, Dr.Sayer really thought he was helping Leonard and not harming him. If Dr.Sayer hadn't of done his case studies on Leonard using the L-Dopa drug we may still not know the full effects of using an agonist drug. This particular study may of endangered and hurt a few patients but in a way it saved many other patients lives.