Dopamine pathways in the brain

Dopamine pathways originate from groups of cells in the rostral areas of the brain. These groups were given the titles A8, A9, and A10 by the Swedish neuoanatomists Falck and Hillarp who developed techniques forvisualizing catecholamine cells in the brain in the 1960s.

They showed that Dopamine neurones are organised into pathways in the brain.

The nigrostriatal system runs from the substantia nigra (A9) forwards to the caudate, putamen, and globus pallidus, which together make up the corpus striatum. The mesolimbicocortical sytem run from the ventral tegmental area (A10) forwards to the nucleus accumbens, amydala, septum, olfactory nuclei,