Rats with a neonatal ventral hippocampal lesion (NVHL) are used to model schizophrenia. They show enhanced locomotion and difficulties in learning after puberty. Such behavioral modifications are strengthened by dopaminergic psychostimulant drugs, which is also relevant for schizophrenia because illustrating its dopaminergic facet. But it remains questionable that only dopaminergic drugs elicit...

BACKGROUND In the field of dual diagnosis, physicians are frequently presented with pharmacological questions. Questions about the risk of developing psychotic symptoms in cocaine users who need treatment with dopaminergic drugs could lead to an undertreatment. OBJECTIVE Review the presence of psychotic symptoms in patients with cocaine abuse/dependence, in treatment with dopaminergic drugs. ...

Cortico-striato-thalamic (CST) systems are anatomical substrates for many motor and executive functions and are implicated in diverse neuropsychiatric disorders. Electrophysiological studies in rats, monkeys and patients with Parkinson's disease have shown that power and coherence of low frequency oscillations in CST systems can be profoundly modulated by dopaminergic drugs. We combined functio...

In contrast to antipsychosis drugs which inhibit the dopamine-activated adenylate cyclase [ATP pyrophosphate-lyase (cyclizing), EC 4.6.1.1] of caudate nucleus, dopaminergic drugs for treatment of Parkinson's disease stimulate this cyclase. Stimulants and inhibitors of cholinergic neurons inhibited this adenylate cyclase activity competitively and specifically. Thus, the mechanism by which dopam...

Following a period of stable response to dopaminergic medication (the “honeymoon” period), Parkinson’s disease (PD) patients gradually develop two progressive clinical phenomena requiring changes in the clinical management: motor fluctuations and dyskinesias. These two phenomena are intrinsically interconnected, but often require opposite treatment attitudes, because increases of dopaminergic t...

Currently available antipsychotic drugs target dopaminergic neurotransmission. Many patients do not respond fully to these treatments, and there has been considerable effort to investigate alternative targets. Here we summarise the rationale and recent evidence supporting efforts to develop glutamatergic antipsychotic drugs.

Specific antagonists of central dopaminergic receptors constitute the major class of antipsychotic drugs (APD). Two principal effects of APD are used as criteria for the pre-clinical screening of their antipsychotic action: (i) inhibition of basal and depolarization-induced activity of mesolimbic dopaminergic neurons; (ii) antagonism of the locomotor effects of dopaminergic agonists. Given that...