Tardive dyskinesia (TD), first appearing in humans after introduction of the phenothiazine class of antipsychotics in the 1950s, is now recognized as an abnormality resulting predominately by long-term block of dopamine (DA) D2 receptors (R). TD is thus reproduced in primates and rodents by chronic administration of D2-R antagonists. Through a series of studies predominately since the 1980s, it has been shown in rodent modeling of TD that when haloperidol or other D2-R antagonist is added to drinking water, rats develop spontaneous oral dyskinesias, vacuous chewing movements (VCMs), after~3months, and this TD is associated with an increase in the number of striatal D2-R. This TD persists for the duration of haloperidol administration and another~2months after haloperidol withdrawal. By neonatally lesioning dopaminergic nerves in brain in neonatal rats with 6-hydroxydopamine (6-OHDA), it has been found that TD develops sooner, at~2months, and also is accompanied by a much higher number of VCMs in these haloperidol-treated lesioned rats, and the TD persists lifelong after haloperidol withdrawal, but is not associated with an increased D2-R number in the haloperidol-withdrawn phase. TD apparently is related in part to supersensitization of both D1-R and serotoninergic 5-HT2-R, which is also a typical outcome of neonatal 6-OHDA (n6-OHDA) lesioning. Testing during the haloperidol-withdrawn phase in n6-OHDA rats displaying TD reveals that receptor agonists and antagonists of a host of neuronal phenotypic classes have virtually no effect on spontaneous VCM number, except for 5-HT2-R antagonists which acutely abate the incidence of VCMs in part. Extrapolating to human TD, it appears that (1) 5-HT2-R supersensitization is the crucial alteration accounting for persistence of TD, (2) dopaminergic-perhaps age-related partial denervation-is a risk factor for the development of TD, and (3) 5-HT2-R antagonists have the therapeutic potential to alleviate TD, particularly if/when an antipsychotic D2-R blocker is withdrawn.