What Does Dopamine Actually Do?

Dopamine is neurotransmitter that make us feel pleasure. iii. It’s not good if you keep taking drugs. 1.

The first key point is the brain and how dopamine may affect important brain function. In chapter one our reading begins with the human brain, walnut-shaped with a weight of 1.3 kilograms. The brain is a network on neurons with infinite number of path for neural signals. The views discuss an experiment using fruit lies have dopamine and how it acts on their brain through dopamine receptor molecules.

For instance, an excess of dopamine can cause schizophrenia and hallucinogenic drugs stimulate dopamine for it's main purpose as well as cocaine or adderall. Too much Dopamine can influence people to seek more adventurous lives, or too little can cause lack of motivation such as people with Parkinson's disease.

The major support and refutation of the dopamine hypothesis has come from the examination of dopamine receptors in these regions of the brain. There are two main types of dopamine receptors, D1 and D2. However, within the category of D2 receptors, there are three subtypes, D2, D3, and D4. (5) Through PET scan analysis of dopamine usage in the brain and post-mordum molecular analysis of brain tissue, researcher were able to determine relative levels of dopamine receptors in patients with schizophrenia compared to non-schizophrenics. Overall analysis of dopamine

In the research presented by Howes and Kapur (2009), they have pointed out a possible concern to invalidate the dopamine hypothesis in schizophrenia as current PET studies did not holding a firm position in measure the dopamine level, they were more to a postulation of a generated estimation from the data. Furthermore, Howes and Kapur (2009) also stressed that the role of dopamine could be circumvented by using the antipsychotic drugs which effectively to the psychotic symptoms but neutral to the dopamine system, thus the role of dopamine will be less critical in schizophrenia. This is because most of the recent antipsychotic researches only prove that dopamine merely contributed in providing a solution in alleviating the psychosis-liked-symptoms but those symptoms are not the symptoms only existed in schizophrenia.

Some dopaminergic (i.e., dopamine-releasing) neurons run from the substantia nigra to the corpus striatum; their loss gives rise to the clinical manifestations of Parkinson's Disease (Korczyn 1994); others, involved in the rewarding effects of drugs and natural stimuli, run from the mesencephalon to the nucleunucleus accumbens.

The next part the dopamine reward system jumps to is the basal ganglia, which within the basal ganglia is the dorsal striatum. The dorsal striatum’s job is to receive

This research paper is a compilation of information gathered during lectures and through the web on the Nervous System and the Reward Pathway. This paper examines the structure of these systems, their discovery and the effects that drugs have on influencing these systems and how addictions are formed.

Over the years, experiments have produced evidence to suggest that dopamine plays a role in the development of Schizophrenia (Howes, McCutcheon, & Stone, 2015). Dopamine is a neurotransmitter that is produced in the substantia nigra and ventral tegmental regions of the brain. The belief that dopamine was involved in Schizophrenia arose after multiple studies performed with compounds produced an increase in extracellular concentrations of dopamine (Lieberman, Kane, & Alvir, 1987). The patients that were administered these compounds had similar symptoms to those observed from patients who were diagnosed with Schizophrenia (Lieberman et al., 1987).

ut dopamine itself? It’s not salience. It has far more roles in the brain to play. For example, dopamine plays a big role in starting movement, and the destruction of dopamine neurons in an area of the brain called the substantia nigra is what produces the symptoms of Parkinson’s disease. Dopamine also plays an important role as a hormone, inhibiting prolactin to stop the release of breast milk. Back in the mesolimbic pathway, dopamine can play a role in psychosis, and many antipsychotics for treatment of schizophrenia target dopamine. Dopamine is involved in the frontal cortex in executive functions like attention. In the rest of the body, dopamine is involved in nausea, in kidney function, and in heart function.

Of the six most common neurotransmitters, dopamine is probably the one people know the most about. Dopamine is involved in controlling the reward and pleasure system in the brain. It allows us to recognize rewards and helps give us the ability to go after them. Learning, behavior, and cognition are also affected by dopamine levels. As with anything, if you have an imbalance, then bad things can happen. Parkinson’s disease can be caused by low dopamine amounts. People who have low dopamine levels can be addicted to substances easier.

It is dopamine that is involved in the pleasure centers of the brain where motivation, reward, the experience of pleasure, and motor function take place. Methamphetamine’s ability to release dopamine rapidly in reward regions of the brain produces the euphoric “rush” or “flash” that many users experience. Repeated methamphetamine use can easily lead to addiction—a chronic, relapsing disease characterized by compulsive drug seeking and use.

Imagine looking at two individuals, one is obese and the other is average weight but exhibiting obvious venous drug injection punctures in his/her arm. Which most one of the two would you say is “unhealthy”? While many people would probably consider the obese person as somewhat okay, in contrast they would probably argue that the drug addict is in much needed immediate help. According to our societal acceptances, obesity is welcomed as opposed to drug use behaviors. Therefore in this paper, I will focus my discussion on the comparison of the dopamine reward pathway amongst obese individuals and drug addicts, as well as the controversial arguments whether or not obesity should be considered a disease.

In the article “Dopamine and Teenage Logic” by Daniel Siegel he states that “Dopamine is a neurotransmitter central in creating our drive for reward” (Source B). This indicates that dopamine is one of the key causes of risk-taking. Teens often take risks because they are focused on the reward they get after they take it, rather than what would actually happen to them during and after they take the risk. There are two significant ways that dopamine affects our brains; increased impulsiveness, and the susceptibility to addiction by the release of dopamine.

The discovery of physiological functions of 3-hydroxytyramine (dopamine), a metabolite of the amino acid tyrosine, more than 50 years ago (Carlsson et al., 1957) resulted in enormous amount of interest and discussion about this catecholaminergic neurotransmitter. These Dopaminergic neurons are critically involved in numerous vital central nervous system functions, including voluntary movement, feeding, reward, sleep, attention, working memory, and learning (Beaulieu et al., 2011). The involvement of dopamine in various critical functions, its of no surprise that dopaminergic dysfunction is associated in variety of human disorder particularly CNS related disorders like Schizophrenia, Parkinson’s Disease, Huntington’s Disease and Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) etc. Targeting these receptors using specific agonists and antagonists provides an opportunity to significantly influence dopaminergic transmission and dopamine-dependent functions by enhancing or blocking the actions of dopamine.