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Brain breakthrough: Dopamine doesn't work at all like we thought it did
Dopamine doesn’t flood the brain as once believed – it fires in exact, ultra-fast bursts that target specific neurons. The discovery turns a century-old view of dopamine on its head and could transform how we treat everything from attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) to Parkinson’s…
“Our current research found that dopamine signaling and transmission in the brain is much more complex than we thought,” said lead author Christopher Ford, a professor at the School of Medicine. Using two-photon microscopy, the team saw that dopamine is released in these disparate hotspots with millisecond precision – which suggests the brain can selectively target small neural populations with the neurotransmitter to fine-tune specific behaviors or decisions. The team's analysis found that not only did dopamine function in these short, sharp bursts at different times and to different neurons, enabling real-time adjustments in activity, it also produced slower, broader diffusion across larger areas.
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