Dopamine as a neurotransmitter
La dopamina como neurotransmisor
- Date
- 1957-1958 · confidence high
- Place
- Lund University, Lund, Sweden
- Credited to
- Arvid Carlsson (with Åke Bertler, Evald Rosengren and Nils-Åke Hillarp)
- Field
- Life & health
⚠️ Disputed: the sources disagree.
What was discovered
Carlsson showed in rabbits that reserpine depleted brain dopamine and caused immobility, and that levodopa reversed it; he proposed that dopamine is a neurotransmitter in its own right and not just a precursor of noradrenaline.
The idea was received with scepticism for years; the concentration of dopamine in the basal ganglia was shown by Bertler and Rosengren (1959). Carlsson won the Nobel in 2000, with Greengard and Kandel.
What it led to
- treating Parkinson's disease with levodopa (1960s)
- the dopamine hypothesis of schizophrenia and antipsychotics
- the first selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor antidepressants (zimelidine)