Dopamine controls formation of new brain cells
A study of the salamander brain has led researchers at Karolinska Institutet in Sweden to discover a hitherto unknown function of the neurotransmitter dopamine. In an article published in the prestigious scientific journal Cell Stem Cell they show how in acting as a kind of switch for stem cells, dopamine controls the formation of new neurons in the adult brain. Their findings may one day contribute to new treatments for neurodegenerative diseases, such as Parkinson’s.The study was conducted using salamanders which unlike mammals recover fully from a Parkinson’s-like condition within a four