Dope O' Mine

Something very interesting popped up in my searchbot results the other day. Most of us know dopamine as a neurotransmitter, the lack of which is the reason for the symptoms of Parkinson's Disease. Dopamine also exerts a potent immunoregulatory effect. Two new studies provide a new look at dopamine, and suggest that immune cells can create and secrete their own dopamine which can then interact with the immune cells' own dopamine receptors to influence those same cells' behavior.