Clinical evidences suggest a causal relationship between rheumatoid arthritis (RA) and the dopaminergic system, and several studies described an alteration of the disease in patients treated with dopaminergic agents. Despite these interesting results, potential direct effects of dopamine on RA have not been intensively considered until the last decade. Recent studies confirm a direct effect of dopamine on the systemic immune response as well as on bone remodeling and on joint inflammation, both in humans and in different animal models of arthritis. While more research is necessary to accurately determine the effect of dopamine in RA, these results are encouraging and support a possible use of dopaminergic drugs for the treatment of arthritis in the future. Moreover, they point out that dopaminergic agents use to treat comorbidities, might influence the immune response and the disease progression in RA patients. This review summarizes the current knowledge about the effects of dopaminergic drugs on RA and describes the potential of dopaminergic drugs as future therapeutic strategy in arthritis.

Graphical Abstract

中文翻译：

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类风湿关节炎中的多巴胺能药物。

临床证据表明类风湿关节炎（RA）与多巴胺能系统之间存在因果关系，一些研究描述了用多巴胺能药物治疗的患者的疾病改变。尽管取得了这些有趣的结果，但直到最近十年才深入研究了多巴胺对RA的潜在直接作用。最近的研究证实了多巴胺对人体和不同关节炎动物模型的全身免疫反应以及骨骼重塑和关节炎症的直接作用。尽管需要更多的研究来准确确定多巴胺在RA中的作用，但这些结果令人鼓舞，并支持将来可能使用多巴胺能药物治疗关节炎。而且，他们指出，多巴胺能药物可用于治疗合并症，可能会影响RA患者的免疫反应和疾病进展。这篇综述总结了有关多巴胺能药物对RA的影响的最新知识，并描述了多巴胺能药物作为关节炎未来治疗策略的潜力。

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