Abstract
Biologically important compound dopamine plays an important role in the central and peripheral nervous systems. Insufficient dopamine level due to the loss of dopamine producing cells may lead to disease called Schizophrenia and Parkinson's disease. Hence, a simple and fast detection of dopamine is necessary to study in the fields of neurophysiology and clinical medicine. An enhanced fluorimetric determination of dopamine in the presence of ascorbic acid is achieved using photoluminescence of europium complex, Eu(III)-dipicolinic acid. In order to obtain better responses, several operational parameters have been investigated. Under the optimum conditions, the method showed good stability and reproducibility. The application of this method for the determination of dopamine neurotransmitters was satisfactory. Linear response was found down to 3.0 x 10(-7) M with limit of detection 1.0 x 10(-8) M. The relative standard deviation was found to be 3.33% from 20 independent measurements for 1.0 x 10(-5) M of dopamine. (C) 2012 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.