What is "dopamine"?

What is "dopamine"?

Christopher Reist (Academic Psychiatrist, Co-Author of “Psychiatry”) gives expert video advice on: What are the most common causes of mental disorders? and more...

Dopamine is a monoamine neurotransmitter that's broadly distributed throughout the brain. Dopamine has a number of very important functions including motivation and behavioral activation. We know that when a person consumes cocaine or amphetamine they tend to become much more active, moving around, and that is very likely to be due to the profound action on the dopamine system. Dopamine's also important in cognition. It is present in the frontal lobes of the brain and is important in a lot of those high level cognitive abilities including decision-making and memory. We also know that it has a key role in the award systems. To that end dopamine is very relevant to substance abuse.