The actions of antipsychotic drugs on dopamine receptors in the rat substantia nigra.

The activity of neurones in the zona compacta of the rat substantia nigra was recorded extracellularly in vitro. Dopamine produced a dose-dependent depression of firing, threshold doses being in the 3 microM range. The inhibitory effects of dopamine were antagonized by (-)-sulpiride (pA2 7.5), haloperidol (pA2 8.4) and cis-flupenthixol (pA2 6.9). The actions of gamma-aminobutyric acid (GABA) were not affected by these compounds. The gradients of Schild plots of data for (-)-sulpiride were less than unity while those for haloperidol and cis-flupenthixol were greater than unity, which suggests that the antagonism was not competitive. This is discussed with regard to the use of a bioassay system in the analysis of the effects of antagonists. Haloperidol and (-)-sulpiride were found to have similar potencies, as dopamine receptor antagonists, to those predicted from biochemical and clinical efficacy studies, but cis-flupenthixol was less potent than expected.