Dopamine transporter ligands: recent developments and therapeutic potential

The dopamine transporter (DAT) is a target for the development of pharmacotherapies for a number of central disorders including Parkinson's disease, Alzheimer's disease, schizophrenia, Tourette's syndrome, Lesch-Nyhan disease, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), obesity, depression, and stimulant abuse as well as normal aging. Considerable effort continues to be devoted to the development of new ligands for the DAT. In this review, we present some of the more interesting ligands developed during the last few years from the 3-phenytropane, 1,4-dialkylpiperazine, phenylpiperidine, and benztropine classes of DAT uptake inhibitors as well as a few less studied miscellaneous DAT uptake inhibitors. Studies related to the therapeutic potential of some of the more studied compounds are presented. A few of the compounds have been studied as pharmacotherapies for Parkinson's disease, ADHD, and obesity. However, most of the drug discovery studies have been directed toward pharmacotherapies for stimulant abuse (mainly cocaine). A number of the compounds showed decreased cocaine maintained responding in rhesus monkeys trained to self-administer cocaine. One compound, GBR 12,909, was evaluated in a Phase 1 clinical trial.