Dopamine neurons have a role in movement, new study finds

Princeton University researchers have found that dopamine – a brain chemical involved in learning, motivation and many other functions – also has a direct role in representing or encoding movement. The finding could help researchers better understand dopamine’s role in movement-related disorders such as Parkinson’s disease.

The researchers used a new, more precise technique to record the activity of dopamine neurons at two regions within a part of the brain known as the striatum, which oversees action planning, motivation and reward perception. The researchers found that while all of the neurons carried signals needed to learn and plan movement, one of the nerve bundles, the one that went to the region called the dorsomedial striatum, also carried a signal that could be used to control movements.

Paper:http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27110917

Source:https://blogs.princeton.edu/research/2016/04/25/dopamine-neurons-have-a-role-in-movement-new-study-finds/

Image:
Dopamine neurons in the nucleus accumbens (left) and the dorsomedial striatum (right).
Credit: I. B. Witten et al., Nature NeuroscienceCorina Marinescu