Sulpiride: a study of the effects on dopamine receptors in rat neostriatum and limbic forebrain.

Sulpiride is a new neuroleptic which does not produce extrapyramidal side effects in humans nor catalepsy in experimental animals. Sulpiride in rat striatum and nucleus accumbens homogenates fails to block adenylate cyclase activation induced by both dopamine and apomorphine. Moreover the in vivo cyclic adenosine monophosphate accumulation induced by apomorphine in the striatum of rats is not blocked by sulpiride as haloperidol and other classic neuroleptic do. Sulpiride appears to be unique in respect to other neuroleptic since according to the experiments reported in this paper it does not block dopamine receptors either in vitro or in vivo.