Instead of turning the patient's overactive dopamine receptor off, it dims it a bit.

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In particular, work by Dr Fowler implicates another dopamine receptor, DRD2, and also 5HTT, which regulates serotonin levels, in influencing voter turnout.

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In the late 1950s scientists linked schizophrenia to an overload of dopamine in the brain, so they devised the first generation of antipsychotics, which homed in on a single dopamine receptor.

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For example, a genetic database created by Spectra Biomedical, a division of Glaxo Wellcome, found an unexpected correlation between migraine attacks, serious depression and variations in the dopamine D2 receptor (a molecule that sticks out of certain nerve cells).

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One of the main ways schizophrenia drugs differ is in how they inhibit a brain receptor for dopamine, a key neurotransmitter that is overactive in some parts of a schizophrenic's brain.

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Its sufferers are often treated with haloperidol, which blocks the receptor molecules that dopamine stimulates, but this drug does not work well in everyone and can have unpleasant side-effects.

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Dopamine-producing nerve cells have acetylcholine-receptor molecules on their surfaces.

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Neurosearch's compound stops cocaine from binding to the receptor by getting in the way and gradually brings dopamine levels back to normal.

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