Scientists record real-time dopamine release in Parkinson's patients

New York, November 28 :Scientists have reported first-ever measurements of a key neurotransmitter involved in learning with unprecedented precision in the brains of people with Parkinson’s disease. The measurements, collected during brain surgery as the conscious patients played an investment game, demonstrate how rapid dopamine release encodes information crucial for human choice. The findings may have widespread implications not just for Parkinson’s disease but for other neurological and psychiatric disorders as well, including depression and addiction, researchers from Virginia Tech Carilion Research Institute noted. The researchers detected changes in the levels of dopamine a thousand times faster than had previously been recorded in humans. These rapid measurements, combined with enhanced chemical specificity, led the scientists to discover that dopamine - a crucial neurotransmitter involved in learning and decision-making - has a far more complex role than formerly thought.

“More than 20 years of research in nonhuman model organisms has painted a very specific picture of the suspected role of dopamine in guiding human behaviour,” said Read Montague, director of the Human Neuroimaging Laboratory at the Virginia Tech Carilion Research Institute and senior author of the paper. “And now, with these first-of-their-kind measurements, made directly in humans, we’ve discovered that this picture was woefully incomplete,” Montague noted. (IANS)