Dopamine was initially regarded as a mere precursor of noradrenaline, but has progressively gained its present status of a common target for major drug classes and a substrate for some basic functions and dysfunctions of the Central Nervous System. The scientific interest has shifted from typically motor areas of the striatum to traditionally limbic ones as the nucleus accumbens and its afferent areas, the prefrontal cortex, the hippocampal formation and the basolateral amygdala. This double volume provides a systematic account of the anatomy, physiology, neurochemistry, molecular biology and behavioural pharmacology of dopamine in the CNS. - The first volume deals with the history of dopamine, the anatomy of dopamine neurons, the biochemistry and molecular biology of dopamine uptake sites and of dopamine receptors.