Cortical dopamine, human model

Prefrontal Cortical Dopamine in a Human Model of NMDA Dysfunction. 10... 

A Rde for Norepinephrine. Although the vast majority of studies of psychostimulants have focused on the role of dopamine and/or serotonin, the importance of norepinephrine (thought to be paramount 30 years ago) is generally now overlooked. Details of the mechanism of action of psychostimulants have been developed primarily through the use of animal models, in which dopamine seems to be the key player, and these results then have been extrapolated to humans. Yet, cocaine also is a potent NE uptake inhibitor, and the potency of amphetamine for norepinephrine release is similar to that for dopamine release. Indeed, in the rat prefrontal cortex, amphetamine and cocaine increased extracellularnorepinephrine to an extent that was quantitatively similar to that of dopamine (116).Further, it appeared that the increase in prefrontal cortical norepinephrine was actually attributable to the blockade of the norepinephrine transporter by both drugs. Recently, Rothman et al. (117) reported that the oral doses of several stimulants required to produce amphetamine-like subjective effects in humans were most closely correlated with... 

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