Apomorphine-induced blinking and yawning in healthy volunteers

Yawning and spontaneous blink rate (SBR) are two physiological reflexes which have been incompletely examined but one neurobiological step of these two behaviours seems, at least in part, dopamine-dependent. The reference dopaminergic agonist, apomorphine hydrochloride (0.5, 1, and 2 micrograms kg-1 s.c.), was compared with a placebo in a double-blind latin-square design, and was shown to induce yawning and increase SBR in a population of eight healthy volunteers. These two behavioral effects were not dose-related. The individual SBR differences were correlated with the individual number of yawns for all the four treatments at the 10-30 min interval. Thus, parallel yawning and SBR behaviour suggests a similar pharmacological mechanism. Apomorphine-induced yawning and blinking may be therefore of use in the evaluation of central dopaminergic pathways in man.