Regional concentrations of noradrenaline and dopamine in rat brain

Abstract

The concentrations of noradrenaline and lopamine of 92 brain regions have been measured by a radiometric method which enabled discrimination between noradrenaline and adrenaline. Almost all brain regions investigated contained both noradrenaline and lopamine in measurable amount. However, both catecholamines appeared to be unevenly distributed. Very high dopamine concentrations were measured in the olfactory tubercle, the nucleus accumbens, the caudate nucleus and the rostral part of the medial forebrain bundle; the globus pallidus, the nucleus tractus diagonalis and the nucleus septalis lateralis were also very rich in dopamine. Outside the telencephalon the dopamine concentrations were rather low, except in the median eminence and the area tegmentalis ventralis (Tsai), an area corresponding to the A10 region. High noradrenaline concentrations were measured in most hypothalamic nuclei. Relatively high concentrations of this catecholamine were also measured in several mesencephalic (the ventral part of the central gray, the nucleus raphe dorsalis and the nucleus cuneiformis) and pontine (the locus coeruleus and the nuclei parabrachiales) regions. The highest noradrenaline concentrations in the medulla oblongata were observed in the A2 region and the nucleus commissuralis, which contained at least twice as much noradrenaline as did the more rostral part of the nucleus tractus solitarii.