We Now Have a New Understanding of How Dopamine Works, Which Could Lead to Better Treatments
For decades, scientists have understood that when a person perceives something as pleasant, dopamine is released in their brain. Listen to a favorite song on the radio? Dopamine time. You see the automatic distributor that accidentally releases two treats instead of one? Dopamine. Present yourself to swim and realize that the swimming pool is empty? A touch of dopamine.
In these happy moments, scientists thought that dopamine was released as if it were flooding the brain. But a new study in Neurophysiology Found that the brain is also able to send targeted dopamine bursts. This new insight could help scientists study dopamine diseases such as dependence or that of Parkinson.
What is dopamine?
Scientists did not fully understand the function of dopamine until the late 1950s, when he turned out to be a neurotransmitter. From that moment, scientists recognized that dopamine regulated behavior, cognition, movement and also played a role in immunity.
As the understanding of dopamine scientists became more sophisticated, they realize that the way that dopamine takes in the brain is based on function. When linked to the reward, dopamine comes from the bodies of nerve cells in the ventral tegmental zone. He is then released in the accumbens nucleus and the prefrontal cortex. But when linked to motor functions, dopamine comes from the cell bodies of substantia nigra, then enters the striatum.
Whatever the way, scientists thought that once dopamine released, it flooded the brain.
It was only in recent months that a new study has revealed that the brain is also able to send dopamine to targeted gusts.
Learn more: The mice forget their fears thanks to the dopamine flow through their brains
Dopamine distribution
In the July 2025 study in NeurophysiologyScientists have used two photon microscopy to examine brain tissue of the mouse. This very advanced microscope allowed them to better visualize the structure of the brain and how dopamine can be released in specific nerve cell branches.
“So far, we thought that dopamine only existed in a wide mode. This does not mean that this does not happen, but these local dopamine signals also exist, and they can send significant signals to downstream circuits. We did not have the resolution or the possibility of seeing these things before “before” Christopher Ford, the main author of medicine.
Understanding how dopamine is released into the brain could help the treatment of dopamine diseases. People with Parkinson’s disease, for example, have a dopamine deficiency. Scientists believe that because dopamine regulates engine control, deficiency is responsible for many Parkinson symptoms, such as tremors or tremors.
A treatment for Parkinson implies a drug that imitates dopamine. Ford hopes that understanding how dopamine is released in specific circuits could lead to the development of more impactful pharmaceuticals.
“This finding that dopamine can report in a more local mode can help us have a better framework for these drugs,” he said.
People living with drug addiction are also faced with a dopamine deficiency. With drug addiction, a person gets a boost in the mood of a substance. Boost is much larger and more pleasant than the release of brain dopamine for the awards. Over time, the strengthening of the mood that the person generally receives pleasures of daily life is attenuated in relation to the way in which they feel under the influence of substances.
By understanding what is happening at the cellular level during dopamine deficiency, Ford claims that researchers can be able to better understand how these diseases develop and how treatment or prevention can be improved.
But first, there are still many questions to answer.
“We would like to find these local signals that we have discovered,” explains Ford. “This study has revealed that they exist and raise the possibility that they can transfer information to downstream signals. How do these signals contribute to these general events? ”
However, the answers can be in years. This study, led by Andrew Yee, a postdoctoral scholarship holder of the Ford laboratory, took four years.
Learn more: 5 essential neurotransmitters for daily life
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