Location matters
Desire and dread are separated by just a few millimeters in the brain
By Amy Maxmen
Dopamine conducts a frenzied song of craving at one end of a tiny brain region and a panic-stricken hymn at the other. Depending on where along the length of the region the neurotransmitter is triggered, it elicits emotions ranging from desire to disgust, a new study shows.
“The roles [of dopamine] may be partitioned, and perhaps defined, by anatomy,” comments Emily Hueske, a neuroscientist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
With the recent study, researchers have come one step closer to explaining how dopamine performs a spectrum of functions. Dopamine interacts with spatially coded signals so that its output varies from one end of a brain region to the other, the team reports in the July 9 Journal of Neuroscience.