PT  - JOURNAL ARTICLE
AU  - Skirboll, LR
AU  - Grace, AA
AU  - Bunney, BS
TI  - Dopamine auto- and postsynaptic receptors: electrophysiological evidence for differential sensitivity to dopamine agonists
AID  - 10.1126/science.482929
DP  - 1979 Oct 05
TA  - Science
PG  - 80--82
VI  - 206
IP  - 4414
4099  - http://science.sciencemag.org/content/206/4414/80.short
4100  - http://science.sciencemag.org/content/206/4414/80.full
SO  - Science1979 Oct 05; 206
AB  - The responses of dopamine cells in the substantia nigra to iontophoretically administered dopamine and intravenous apomorphine were compared to the responses of spontaneously active neurons in the caudate nucleus. Dopaminergic cells were six to ten times more sensitive to dopamine and intravenous apomorphine than 86 percent of the caudate cells tested. This differential sensitivity of dopamine auto- and postsynaptic receptors may explain the apparently paradoxical behavioral effects induced by small compared to large doses of some dopamine agonists and may provide a means of developing new types of drugs to antagonize dopaminergic influence in the central nervous system.