What Does Dopamine Do for the Body?

Dopamine is one of the better-known brain chemicals. A so-called “happy” neurotransmitter, dopamine is involved in memory, mood, motivation, and movement.

Dopamine plays a key role in several medical conditions like Parkinson’s disease, fibromyalgia, and restless leg syndrome. Mental health conditions like ADHD, addiction, depression, schizophrenia, and OCD are also linked to dopamine disorders.

High dopamine symptoms include anxiety, excessive energy, insomnia, and hallucinations. Low dopamine levels are associated with brain fog, mood swings, and muscle spasms. 

This article discusses dopamine and dopamine-related disorders. It also explains how medications affect dopamine levels and natural ways to increase dopamine.

What Is Dopamine?

Dopamine is a neurotransmitter, a brain chemical that transmits messages between neurons (brain and nerve cells). It plays an important role in mood regulation, movement, and how humans experience pleasure and pain.

Dopamine binds to receptors on neurons in various brain regions where it performs different functions. In the motor centers of the brain, dopamine deals with movement. In the learning areas of the brain, dopamine impacts focus and attention.

One of dopamine's better-known roles is as the star of the brain's reward system. The brain releases feel-good dopamine as a natural reward for certain behaviors. This includes biological drives like food, sex, and social interactions.

The dopamine hit you get after a pleasurable activity helps to reinforce that behavior. The brain's memory center records the reward, which it then uses it an incentive to drive motivation. 

When dopamine functioning is impaired, it is known as neurotransmitter dysregulation. Many conditions and symptoms are associated with high or low levels of dopamine. However, experts aren’t sure whether this is caused by:

• Abnormal levels producing too much or too little of the neurotransmitter
• Abnormal receptor sensitivity, meaning that the “locks” on neurons aren’t responding properly to dopamine as a “key”
• Too few receptors, meaning dopamine can interact with fewer neurons
• Too many receptors, meaning dopamine can interact with more neurons

What Dopamine Does

Dopamine is believed to play a role in many important functions in your body, mainly those that deal with mental function, emotional response, and physical reactions.

These include:

• Behaviors involving motivation, punishment, and reward
• Cognitive functions involving attention, learning, and working (short-term) memory
• Voluntary movement
• Pain processing
• Sleep and dreaming
• Mood regulation

While it’s colloquially known as the chemical that makes you happy, it primarily does this in ways that involve reward and motivation.

For example, when you taste your favorite ice cream, you get a dopamine boost, and it makes you happy, which gives you the motivation to have another taste. Even anticipating a reward can increase the amount of dopamine activity in your brain.

Low Dopamine Symptoms

Low dopamine activity can have different physical, cognitive (thinking), and emotional effects. The symptoms of the different conditions vary, depending on the region of the brain where dopamine activity is lacking.

Symptoms of inadequate dopamine activity include:

• Rigid muscles that feel stiff and achy
• Tremors
• Muscle cramps or spasms
• Diminished balance and coordination
• A characteristic gait (walking pattern), often involving small, shuffling steps
• Impairment of fine motor skills (like holding a pencil or threading a needle)
• Constipation
• Difficulty eating and swallowing
• Cognitive impairment (“brain fog”)
• Difficulties with focusing attention
• Fatigue
• Lack of energy
• Slow movement or speech
• Mood swings
• Low sex drive

If you’ve experienced several of these symptoms together, you may not have even realized they could all be related. Be sure to bring up all of your symptoms to your healthcare provider so you can be properly diagnosed and treated.

High Dopamine Symptoms

High levels of dopamine and excessive dopamine activity in the brain can be debilitating.

High dopamine activity is linked to:

• Anxiety
• Excess energy or mania
• Increased feelings of stress
• High sex drive
• Insomnia
• Aggression
• Hallucinations

Be sure to talk to your healthcare provider if you experience any of these symptoms, especially if you have some of the more serious symptoms, such as hallucinations and aggression.

Related Conditions

A wide array of medical conditions stem from problems with dopamine. They fall under three categories: mental health conditions, movement disorders, and central sensitivity syndromes.

Many psychiatric conditions are associated with dopamine dysregulation. Dopamine-related mental-health conditions include:

• Addiction
• Schizophrenia
• Depression
• Bipolar disorder
• Attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder
• Obsessive-compulsive disorder
• Binge-eating disorder

Dopamine activity in the motor cortex is crucial for your muscles to make smooth, controlled movements. Inadequate dopamine activity in the motor cortex is related to the following movement disorders:

• Parkinson’s disease and other Parkinsonian syndromes
• Huntington’s disease
• Restless legs syndrome

Central sensitivity syndromes cause abnormal reactions to stimuli. Dysregulation of dopamine and other neurotransmitters is associated with hypersensitivity of the central nervous system. Conditions classified as central sensitivity syndromes include:

• Fibromyalgia
• Chronic fatigue syndrome

Here is a closer look at the role dopamine plays in several of these conditions.

Addiction

Dopamine’s role in reward and motivation is a key aspect of addiction. Whether it’s drugs, food, gambling, shopping, or sex, getting your “fix” gives your brain the good feeling dopamine creates. Your brain can crave that to an unhealthy degree, giving you the motivation to repeat the behavior that leads to the dopamine release.

Technology and Social Media Addiction

A lot of media focus has been given to the idea that technology—especially smartphones and social media—is turning a lot of people into addicts. This is a controversial topic, but some experts say it’s a real threat.

It may be that the constant rewards of social media (e.g., getting “likes” or “shares”) sets up the same cycle of dopamine release and motivation to repeat the behavior that leads to addiction.

In 2019, the Journal of Behavioral Addictions published a study that demonstrated parallels between people with excessive social media use and those with substance abuse and behavioral addictions.

Schizophrenia

Dopamine plays a role in the psychiatric disorder schizophrenia. Other neurotransmitters, including GABA and glutamate, may be important, as well.

Older antipsychotic drugs work by blocking the action of dopamine in the brain, and the fact that they often alleviate symptoms of schizophrenia is strong evidence that dopamine is a culprit. However, some newer antipsychotics also alleviate schizophrenia symptoms without affecting dopamine.

Primary symptoms of schizophrenia include:

• Psychosis (an altered perception of reality)
• Delusions
• Hallucinations
• Disorganized speech and behavior

Major Depressive Disorder (Clinical Depression)

Low dopamine activity has been implicated in some symptoms of major depression, including lack of interest and motivation.

The neurotransmitters serotonin and norepinephrine also are believed to be involved in clinical depression, and anti-depressant drugs usually target these two neurotransmitters rather than dopamine.

Bipolar Disorder

Both high and low dopamine activity are theorized to be involved in bipolar disorder, providing a possible explanation of the two phases of the illness: manic (extreme highs) and depressive (extreme lows).

Excess dopamine receptors and a hyperactive reward process network may underly the manic phase of the condition. Meanwhile, decreases in levels of a substance called dopamine transporter may contribute to lower dopamine function and depression. The overall problem may be with neurotransmitter regulation, not simply highs or lows.

Sometimes certain symptoms of bipolar disorder are treated with antipsychotics, which reduce dopamine activity.

Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD)

ADHD involves difficulties with attention, working memory, impulsivity, and hyperactive behavior. It’s believed to involve low dopamine activity, possibly due to certain genetic mutations that impact dopamine.

ADHD is often treated with stimulant or antidepressant medications that are theorized to either increase dopamine production in the brain or make more dopamine available to neurons by slowing down certain processes.

Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD)

Dopamine, along with serotonin and glutamate, is believed to be dysregulated in the anxiety disorder OCD. In OCD, people develop obsessions (intrusive thoughts or images that trigger significant emotional distress) and compulsions (behaviors someone engages in to decrease the upsetting obsessions).

OCD may involve damped dopamine-receptor activity and also increased dopamine activity in some areas of the brain. Most drug treatments for OCD involve antidepressants, which alter serotonin function but not dopamine.

Binge-Eating Disorder (BED)

BED involves recurrent binging on large amounts of food very quickly, accompanied by feelings of a loss of control and experiences of shame, distress, or guilt.

Dopamine dysregulation has been suggested as one possible biological explanation for this condition because it involves impulse control and the reward centers of the brain.

Certain medications that may impact dopamine function are sometimes used to treat BED.

Parkinson’s Disease

In Parkinson’s disease, the neurons that create dopamine degenerate, leading to a chronic lack of dopamine.

The resulting symptoms include:

• Tremors
• Stiffness
• Difficulty walking
• Balance problems
• Speech and swallowing issues
• Reduced facial expressions

Parkinson’s is a progressive disease that gets worse over time. It’s treated primarily by drugs that convert to dopamine in the body, increase dopamine levels, or mimic the effects of dopamine.

Huntington’s Disease

Huntington’s disease is a progressive genetic disease that involves both motor and non-motor symptoms. It’s caused by the deterioration of a brain region called the corpus striatum, which is an important part of the motor and reward systems.

Symptoms of Huntington’s include:

• Chorea (a type of uncontrollable movement)
• Cognitive problems
• Poor coordination
• Mood swings
• Problems talking and swallowing

Late in the disease, people can completely lose their ability to walk and talk. Huntington’s can involve symptoms seen in psychiatric disorders tied to excess dopamine activity, including psychosis, aggression, and impulsivity. These symptoms are sometimes treated with atypical antipsychotics.

Restless Leg Syndrome (RLS)

RLS is a movement disorder that involves strange sensations and involuntary leg movements as you sleep or when you’re in a relaxed state. The movements can keep you from getting enough deep sleep and leave you sleep-deprived, even after what would normally be adequate time in bed.

In people with RLS, a few areas of the brain are deficient in iron. In addition, abnormal levels of dopamine in the brain have also been noted. The relationship between low iron and dysregulated dopamine levels isn’t yet understood.

Some research indicates that genetics and hormone abnormalities may also play a role. Many of the medications used to treat RLS are also used in the treatment of Parkinson’s disease.

Fibromyalgia

Fibromyalgia can involve hypersensitivity to pain signals, light, noise, fragrances, temperature, and sometimes certain foods. Research suggests an association with low dopamine activity.

Symptoms of fibromyalgia that may be related to dopamine deficiency include:

• Muscle spasms
• Cognitive dysfunction
• Restless legs syndrome
• Sleep problems
• Anxiety
• Depression
• Mood swings
• Swallowing difficulties

Fibromyalgia isn’t typically treated with medications that directly impact dopamine, as treatment tends to focus more on serotonin and norepinephrine.

Myalgic Encephalomyelitis (ME/CFS)

ME used to be called chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS), and the abbreviations are often combined as ME/CFS or CFS/ME.

It’s a neuroinflammatory disease involving low activity of dopamine, serotonin, and norepinephrine. It features intense fatigue plus extreme sensitivity to exertion and environmental factors (e.g., noise, heat, chemicals).

Symptoms of ME/CFS that may be related to low dopamine activity include:

• Cognitive dysfunction
• Sleep problems
• Anxiety
• Depression
• Mood swings

The treatment of ME/CFS is often aimed at neurotransmitters other than dopamine. However, the ADHD drug methylphenidate is sometimes prescribed off-label for this disease, and it does increase dopamine levels.

Natural Ways to Boost Dopamine

Dopamine levels can be increased or balanced without medication. Eating certain foods, engaging in relaxing hobbies, and getting enough sleep are just a few ways to improve your dopamine.

Nutrition

Nutritional deficiencies are linked to altered dopamine production. The body requires adequate intake of iron, niacin, folate, and vitamin B6 to make dopamine.

Amino acids—the building blocks of protein—are also linked to better dopamine levels. Tyrosine, for example, is linked to improved dopamine availability and cognitive performance. Amino acids are found in protein-rich foods, such as:

• Beef
• Dairy
• Eggs
• Legumes
• Soy
• Turkey

Research also shows several fruits and vegetables improve dopamine activity. These include: 

• Apples
• Avocado
• Banana
• Beans
• Eggplant
• Plantains
• Spinach
• Tomato
• Velvet beans

In fact, research shows velvet beans may help raise dopamine levels in people with Parkinson's disease. This is due to their high levels of L-dopa, the precursor molecule to dopamine.

Relaxation

Finding ways to relax and beat stress also helps to improve dopamine levels. Things you can do to boost dopamine include:

• Exercise
• Meditatation
• Massage
• Playing with a pet
• Reading a book
• Yoga
• Taking a walk in nature
  

Sleep

Getting adequate sleep is also important for making sure you have enough dopamine. Studies link sleep deprivation to lower levels of dopamine activity.

Researchers used PET scans to monitor dopamine activity in different areas of the brain. Sleep deprivation was shown to decrease dopamine signaling in brain regions associated with alertness.

In animal studies, dopamine deficits from sleep deprivation prompted other brain chemical changes that are linked to addiction.

Dopamine-Affecting Medications

Several classes of drugs are used to treat conditions involving dopamine dysregulation.

Dopamine Agonists

Dopamine agonists boost dopamine levels or function and are used to treat Parkinson’s disease and RLS.

Examples include:

• Mirapex (pramipexole)
• Requip (ropinirole)
• Neupro (rotigotine patch)

Typical Antipsychotics

Typical antipsychotics lower dopamine activity in the brain by blocking a key dopamine receptor. They’re used to treat schizophrenia and bipolar disorder.

Examples include:

• Chlorpromazine
  
• Haldol (haloperidol)
• Thiothixene

Atypical Antipsychotics

Atypical antipsychotics are newer drugs that lower dopamine activity similarly to typical antipsychotics and also affect serotonin. They treat the same conditions as the older typicals, but with fewer side effects.

Examples include:

• Abilify (aripiprazole)
• Seroquel (quetiapine)
• Clozaril (clozapine)