Dopamine Essay

Dopamine is one of the most influential neurotransmitters in the human body. It plays a multitude of necessary roles in everyday life tasks such as regulating eating, sleeping, and even motor control. However, Dopamine has its dangers as well. In addition to being a major driving force behind addiction, imbalanced dopamine levels are a cause of a plethora of diseases including depression, ADHD, and Schizophrenia. With many of these conditions on the rise, it is clear at least that Dopamine is very significant in our modern world. For a neurotransmitter that does so much, Dopamine is produced by relatively very few nerve cells, around 400,000 in the brain (Schultz 2007). While nerve cells can be found all over the body, the ones that produce dopamine are all concentrated in the brain. More specifically, the substania nigra and ventral tegmental which make up the basal ganglia in the midbrain as well as the hypothalamus, located right above the

At the molecular level, dopamine is a simple molecule. It consists of two parts, a benzene ring with two hydroxyl groups and an amine group attached by an ethyl chain. Its structure allows it to bind to receptors on other cells after it is released and trigger a response. Dopamine is neither inhibitory nor excitatory because depending on what type of receptor on a neuron it reaches it can either cause or prevent a neural impulse. The structure also places dopamine in the substituted phenethylamine family, the same class of compound as many psychoactive drugs (Carter et al. 1982). The similar structure is what allows some psychoactive drugs to bind to dopamine receptors which will be discussed in more detail later. Additionally, it is a molecule with an amine group, making it highly stable in acidic environments. This trait has medical importance as dopamine is commercially sold in hydrochloric acid to retain its