Brain dopamine receptors--research perspectives and potential sites of regulation

Dopamine mediates its biological actions via at least five distinct G protein-coupled receptors. Recently, significant progress has been made in the understanding of the molecular and cellular consequences of activation of the different dopamine receptors. Not only their anatomical localization has been revisited, what implicates new insights into well known D1/D2 receptor synergism, but also evidence has been provided that dopamine receptors can physically interact with each other as well as with other neurotransmitter receptors. Dopamine receptors are subject to phosphorylation by G protein-coupled receptor kinases, the specificity of which has started to be revealed. Some progress has been made in elucidating the functional significance of polymorphisms observed in genes encoding dopamine receptor. All these new findings need to be appreciated by the psychopharmacologists in order to better understand the behavioral consequences of activation of dopamine receptors.