21 Facts About Dopamine

Dopamine is a neuromodulatory molecule that plays several important roles in cells.

Dopamine itself is available as a manufactured medication for intravenous injection: although it cannot reach the brain from the bloodstream, its peripheral effects make it useful in the treatment of heart failure or shock, especially in newborn babies.

Dopamine is synthesized in a restricted set of cell types, mainly neurons and cells in the medulla of the adrenal glands.

Dopamine itself is used as precursor in the synthesis of the neurotransmitters norepinephrine and epinephrine.

Dopamine is converted into norepinephrine by the enzyme dopamine ß-hydroxylase, with O2 and L-ascorbic acid as cofactors.

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Dopamine is broken down into inactive metabolites by a set of enzymes—monoamine oxidase, catechol-O-methyl transferase (COMT), and aldehyde dehydrogenase (ALDH), acting in sequence.

Dopamine is stored in these vesicles until it is ejected into the synaptic cleft.

Dopamine is the primary neuroendocrine inhibitor of the secretion of prolactin from the anterior pituitary gland.

Dopamine produced by neurons in the arcuate nucleus is secreted into the hypophyseal portal system of the median eminence, which supplies the pituitary gland.

Dopamine contributes to the action selection process in at least two important ways.

Dopamine sulfate has no known biological functions and is excreted in urine.

Dopamine can affect immune cells in the spleen, bone marrow, and circulatory system.

Dopamine is synthesized there, by tubule cells, and discharged into the tubular fluid.

Dopamine system plays a central role in several significant medical conditions, including Parkinson's disease, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, Tourette syndrome, schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, and addiction.

Dopamine system plays a crucial role in several aspects of addiction.

Dopamine plays a role in pain processing in multiple levels of the central nervous system including the spinal cord, periaqueductal gray, thalamus, basal ganglia, and cingulate cortex.

Dopamine is used as a neurotransmitter in most multicellular animals.

Dopamine has consistently been shown to play a role in reward learning, in all animal groups.

Dopamine consumed in food cannot act on the brain, because it cannot cross the blood–brain barrier.

Dopamine-derived melanin probably appears in at least some other biological systems as well.

Dopamine was first synthesized in 1910 by George Barger and James Ewens at Wellcome Laboratories in London, England and first identified in the human brain by Katharine Montagu in 1957.