Principles and recent developments in optical and electrochemical sensing of dopamine: A comprehensive review

Abstract Dopamine is a major neurotransmitter and its abnormal level of concentration in the human body is responsible for neurological diseases, such as Parkinson’s disease, schizophrenia, and Alzheimer’s disease. Therefore, the design and fabrication of diagnostic tools that facilitate the reliable, swift, and quantitative detection of changes in dopamine concentration in real samples, including cerebrospinal fluid and human serum, is important for exploring the role of dopamine in both normal and abnormal biological processes. However, the accurate detection of dopamine in complex biological samples with enhanced sensitivity and selectivity using new advanced point-of-care diagnostic devices is a difficult task. In recent times, a plethora of new biosensing devices based on nanostructured materials have been developed as efficient platforms to address this issue. However, most analytical tools are limited to prototypes only. Due to the extensive research and development of dopamine sensors, this review covers cutting-edge, efficient diagnostic tools for the in vivo detection and quantification of dopamine, with specific emphasis on optical and electrochemical biosensors for dopamine sensing over the past two years of research.