Dopamine is an evolutionarily ancient neurotransmitter that plays an essential role in mediating behavior. In vertebrates, dopamine is central to the mesolimbic reward system, a neural network concerned with the valuation of stimulus salience, and to the nigrostriatal motor system and hypothalamic nuclei involved in the regulation of locomotion and social behavior. In amphibians, dopaminergic n...

The dopamine hypothesis has been the major pathophysiological theory of psychosis in recent decades. Molecular imaging studies have provided in vivo evidence of increased dopamine synaptic availability and increased presynaptic dopamine synthesis in the striata of people with psychotic illnesses. These studies support the predictions of the dopamine hypothesis, but it remains to be determined w...

  The dopaminergic system has different effects on the cardiovascular and immune systems. Since both vascular injuries and activation of the immune system are involved in joint inflammation, in the present study the role of dopaminergic receptors in knee joint inflammation was studied. Evans blue (75 µ g/kg) was used in order to observe changes in permeability which occurred during the process ...

background: oleuropein is a phenolic compound which is present in the olive leaf extract. the purpose of the present study was to investigate the neuroprotective effect of oleuropein as an antioxidant agent on the substantia nigra in aged rats. methods: twenty 18-month-old wistar rats (450-550 g) were randomly divided into control and experimental groups. the experimental group received a daily...

background and objective: parkinson's disease (pd) is characterized by a progressive loss of dopaminergic neurons in substantia nigra. in recent years, there have been interests in the role of the free radical damage in pd. cinnamon and its derivative, cinnamaldehyde acts as powerful antioxidant and anti-inflammatory agents. this research focused on the effects of cinnamon extract and cinn...

a substantial amount of evidence has proposed an important role for cyclooxygenase-2 (cox-2) enzyme in brain diseases and affiliate disorders. the purpose of this research was studying the effects of cox-2 selective inhibition on haloperidol-induced catatonia in an animal model of drug overdose and parkinson’s disease (pd). in this study, the effect of acute and sub-chronic oral administration ...

Primary cultures of nigral tissue are widely used as a model system to assay effects of trophic and toxic agents on dopaminergic neurons. Cultured dopaminergic neurons have been successfully transplanted in animals and led to behavioral improvement in animal models of Parkinson’s disease. The success of these preclinical studies has encouraged investigators to begin clinical trials using transp...

The proper functioning of the dopaminergic system requires the coordinated formation of projections extending from dopaminergic neurons in the substantia nigra (SN), ventral tegmental area (VTA) and retrorubral field to a wide array of forebrain targets including the striatum, nucleus accumbens and prefrontal cortex. The mechanisms controlling the assembly of these distinct dopaminergic cell cl...