Dopamine and motor activity in the lobster Homarus gammarus.

Motor activity similar to agonistic behaviour is obtained after dopamine (DA) injection in lobster. Specially vigorous swimmeret beatings are observed and can be compared to the 'in vitro' motor activity elicited by DA superfusion of the isolated abdominal nervous system. DA-immunoreactive neurons stained by monoclonal antibodies in abdominal ganglia may be involved in swimmeret activation during the agonistic behavior.