Dopamine for beginners

Abstract

Dopamine is surely the most popular neurotransmitter among the general population; in fact, there are several songs and a pop music group that bears his name. Additionally, Google returns around 550,000 results, and PubMed 145,000, for the neurotransmitter name. Of the latter, the oldest is a 1948 article entitled "The pharmacology of compounds structurally related to hydroxytyramine" (Lands, et al, 1948).