Chapter III The use of dopamine receptor knockout mice in understanding brain dopamine neurotransmission and sprouting in the nigrostriatal pathway

Abstract

The neurotransmitter dopamine is thought to play a major role in a number of physiological processes and pathological conditions including schizophrenia, Parkinson's disease, Huntington's disease and drug addiction. Dopamine elicits its effects by interacting with a number of receptors, each with specific binding profiles, signaling cascades and expression profile. However, because of the structural similarity of these receptors, specific ligands are not available. A number of genetically manipulated mice with targeted deletions of dopamine receptors have been generated in an effort to understand the role of defined dopamine receptors in the brain function. This review will initially concentrate on describing the major biological insights gained from the analysis of dopamine receptor knockout mice and will then focus on the use of dopamine receptor knockout mice as a tool to mechanistically dissect a rodent model system of sprouting in the nigrostriatal pathway.