Evolution Of Dopamine

Introduction
According to Yamamoto and Vernier (2011), dopamine is without a doubt one of the oldest neurotransmitters acting on the central nervous system. The researchers suggest that the emergence of dopaminergic systems most likely predates the divergence of chordates during evolution, and the neurotransmitter’s common ancestry is suggested by commonalities among different species that express the same enzymes, vesicle transporters, degradation enzymes, and receptors. Since dopamine is a precursor for both noradrenaline and adrenaline, the evolution of dopaminergic systems would have lead to leaps and bounds in the development of the central nervous system. In mammals, dopamine is used primarily in the visual and olfactory systems, and it also plays a role in motivation, memory, emotion, endocrine regulations, and sensory-motor programming (Yamamoto, 2011). Furthermore, the evolution of a dopaminergic …show more content…
Yamamoto (2013) explained that the functions of dopamine are somewhat conserved across other vertebrate animals with similar forebrain and midbrain structures to