Reeve Benaron is a doctor who specializes in health medicine. He graduated from Yale University in 2007 and has practiced medicine since then. Benaron is currently the associate director for general internal medicine at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston, Massachusetts.

His previous positions include being a faculty member at Harvard School of Medicine and Chief Resident of General Internal Medicine at Brigham and Women’s Hospital. Reeve Benaron studied Parkinsonism, where he found that those with the condition had less dopamine available for use by brain cells compared to healthy individuals.

This led to symptoms such as movement disorder, rigidity, cognitive difficulties, depression, and dementia as Reeve Benaron points out. He conducted research in the Department of Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School and became interested in using brain stimulation to treat the symptoms of Parkinsonism. Benaron’s study proposed that a method called deep brain stimulation could be used to affect dopamine receptors by stimulating them directly.

This is done by delivering electrical currents through electrodes implanted now into the brain; this method has become an alternative therapy for Parkinson’s Disease, Globally there are over 400,000 people with Parkinson’s, and there is no cure for the disease. Reeve Benaron collaborated on this research with Dr. Bart Hoeben, who he worked with at Brigham and Women’s Hospital.

Healthcare and business expert Reeve Benaron became interested in the treatment of drug addiction when he saw the stories of addicts on New England Cable News. In 2008 and 2009, he worked with the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws (NORML) in their Freeing the Cannabis Mind Campaign, which aims to rehabilitate marijuana addicts and lower penalties for possession of marijuana. 

He became involved with this campaign after he read an article about Jason Renard, who had been sentenced to 25 years in prison for conspiracy to distribute cocaine and marijuana. Reeve Benaron explains how, as a child, Renard was addicted to cocaine which led him to a life of crime, but now he wanted no part of drugs or crime after spending many years behind bars and being released on probation.