1Department of Nuclear Medicine, the Second Affiliated Hospital of Zhejiang University School of Medicine, 2Zhejiang University Medical PET Center, 3Institute of Nuclear Medicine and Molecular Imaging, Zhejiang University, 4Key Laboratory of Medical Molecular Imaging of Zhejiang Province, Hangzhou 310009, China
5Beijing 307 Hospital, Beijing 100071, China
6Department of Nuclear Medicine, Peking University Shenzhen Hospital, Shenzhen 518036, China
*These authors contributed equally to this work.

Abstract 

Dopamine (DA) is considered crucial for the rewarding effects of drugs of abuse, but its role in addiction remains unclear. Positron emission tomography (PET) is the first technology used for in vivo measurement of components of the dopaminergic system in the human brain. In this article, we review the major findings from PET imaging studies on the involvement of DA in drug addiction, including presynaptic DA synthesis, vesicular monoamine transporter 2, the DA transporter, and postsynaptic DA receptors. These results have corroborated the role of DA in addiction and increased the understanding of its underlying mechanisms.

Keywords

dopamine; dopaminergic system; drug addiction; positron emission tomography

[SpringerLink]