Dopamine
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
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A neurotransmitter associated with movement, attention, learning, and the brain's pleasure and reward system. |
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History
Dopamine was first synthesized in 1910 by George Barger and James Ewens at Wellcome Laboratories in London, England. It was named dopamine because it is a monoamine whose precursor in the Barger-Ewens synthesis is 3,4-dihydroxyphenylalanine (levodopamine or L-DOPA). Dopamine's function as a neurotransmitter was first recognized in 1958 by Arvid Carlsson and Nils-Åke Hillarp at the Laboratory for Chemical Pharmacology of the National Heart Institute of Sweden. Carlsson was awarded the 2000 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for showing that dopamine is not only a precursor of norepinephrine (noradrenaline) and epinephrine (adrenaline), but also a neurotransmitter.
See also
- Addiction
- Amphetamine
- Antipsychotic
- Catecholamine
- Catechol-O-methyl transferase
- Classical conditioning
- Cocaine
- Depression
- Dopamine hypothesis of schizophrenia
- Dopamine reuptake inhibitor
- Epinine (N-methyldopamine)
- Limbic system
- Methylphenidate
- N,N-Dimethyldopamine
- Neurotransmitter
- Operant conditioning
- Parkinson's disease
- Prolactinoma
- Schizophrenia
- Selegiline
- Serotonin
