DPAG’s Professor of Neuroscience Stephanie Cragg has worked alongside Professor of Behavioural Neuroscience Mark Walton (Department of Experimental Psychology) to compile and edit a new book, The Handbook of Dopamine. The front cover features an image by DPAG DPhil student Lucille Duquenoy.
The Handbook of Dopamine is an extensive volume that captures current understanding of dopamine biology in the brain, including anatomical organisation of dopamine neurons, their molecular and genetic diversity, synaptic and circuit connectivity, receptor function and signalling, through to diverse roles in behaviours and finally, dysfunction in disease.
This volume compiles a comprehensive set of perspectives from a large number of leading scientists working in dopamine research. The volume describes the current state-of-the-field, summarizing knowledge that has been transformed in the last decade through the advent and application of sophisticated new technologies.
Professor Cragg says, ‘It was a huge honour to be given the opportunity to produce this book, and a privilege for us to work with so many fantastic expert colleagues worldwide who so generously contributed their work to the project. It had been more than 15 years since the last comprehensive review of the field – this volume was overdue! We really hope that it provides a timely resource of expert views, and inspires the next as-yet unwritten steps in dopamine research. We are delighted to see the book now in press!’
Professor Walton comments, ‘It has been an incredibly intellectually stimulating experience to curate a Handbook that both distils the extraordinary growth of knowledge in this field over the past decade and points us forwards for the coming years. Dopamine research is a flagship example of how modern neuroscience can start to connect molecular mechanisms across a range of species all the way to complex behaviour and brain disorders, yet there is still so much we don't understand! It is exciting to imagine that these chapters might spur the next generation of scientists to take up this challenge.’
Due for publication later this week, you can read more about the book here