Conventional neuroleptic drugs are thought to derive their antipsychotic efficacy through influences on the mesolimbic dopamine (DA) system. In contrast, motor side effects of these drugs are suggested to follow from influences on the nigrostriatal DA system. This conceptualization is based on the assumption that behaviors mediated by the mesolimbic DA system are involved in schizophrenia while...

Abstract Although the rates of response to first-line pharmacological treatments (serotonin reuptake inhibitors – SRIs) are generally twice that placebo, only 40-60% patients respond sufficiently or able tolerate traditional pharmacotherapy. Augmentation with dopamine antagonist medications is associated strongest evidence, yet antagonists benefit a minority those who try them and carry elevate...

The absence of any compelling basis for a heritable basis of idiopathic Parkinson's disease (PD) has focused attention on environmental exposures as causative agents. While the herbicide paraquat has repeatedly been implicated, its impact on dopamine systems following systemic exposures is equivocal. The restricted focus on paraquat also ignores the extensive geographical overlap of its use wit...

BACKGROUND Strong evidence supports the concept that conventional anesthetics, including inhalational agents and inert gases, such as xenon and nitrous oxide, interact directly with ion channel neurotransmitter receptors. However, there is no evidence that nitrogen, which only exhibits narcotic potency at increased pressure, may act by a similar mechanism. METHODS We compared the inhibitory a...

Systemic hypotension in preterm infants has been related to increased mortality, cerebrovascular lesions, and neurodevelopmental morbidity. Treatment of hypotension with inotropic medications aims at preservation of end organ perfusion and oxygen delivery, especially the brain. The common inotropic medications in preterm infants include dopamine, dobutamine, adrenaline, with adjunctive use of c...

3,4-Dihydroxyphenylacetaldehyde (DOPAL) is the focus of catecholaldehyde hypothesis for pathogenesis Parkinson’s disease and other Lewy body diseases. The produced via oxidative deamination catalyzed by monoamine oxidase (MAO) acting on cytoplasmic dopamine. DOPAL autotoxic, in that it can harm same cells which produced. Normally, detoxified aldehyde dehydrogenase (ALDH)-mediated conversion to ...

Studies of human subjects performing cognitive tasks on and off dopaminergic drugs have suggested a specific role of dopamine in cognitive processes, particularly in working memory and prefrontal "executive" functions. However, the cortical effects of these drugs have been poorly understood. We used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to examine both task-specific and general changes i...

The classical dopamine hypothesis of schizophrenia postulates a hyperactivity of dopaminergic transmission at the D(2) receptor. We measured in vivo occupancy of striatal D(2) receptors by dopamine in 18 untreated patients with schizophrenia and 18 matched controls, by comparing D(2) receptor availability before and during pharmacologically induced acute dopamine depletion. Acute depletion of i...

generated interest in their therapeutic potential in schizophrenia. This has been driven, in part, by the recent approval of the dopamine (D2) receptor partial agonist aripiprazole in the USA and Europe. In comparison with conventional and atypical antipsychotics that mediate their therapeutic effects by D2 receptor blockade, aripiprazole has a unique mechanism of action. However, the concept o...