Substantial evidence has accumulated that in certain vascular beds dopamine produces its relaxant effect through stimulation of specific dopamine receptors. The goal of this review is to describe several in vitro models (perfused mesenteric vessels of the dog; renal, mesenteric, splenic, coronary and cerebral arterial strips of rabbits, dogs and cats; perfused kidney of the rat) recently developed to demonstrate such specific relaxations induced by dopamine and dopaminomimetics. On these models studies on structure-activity relationship for activation of the dopamine receptor resulted in the following order of potency for agonists: SK&F 38393 (partial agonist) greater than epinine greater than A-6, 7-DTN greater than or equal to dopamine greater than N, N-di-n-propyl-dopamine (partial agonist) greater than apomorphine (partial agonist). The dopamine receptor antagonists (+)-butaclamol, cis-alpha-flupenthixol, metoclopramide, droperidol and bulbocapnine were found to competitively antagonize dopamine induced relaxation. In addition, in two isolated organ systems (rabbit mesenteric artery, rat perfused kidney) stereospecificity of the vascular dopamine receptor was demonstrated with the isomers of butaclamol. With the development of several in vitro models demonstrating a specific antagonism against dopamine induced relaxation an important requirement for definition of a specific dopamine receptor if fulfilled according to classical pharmacological criteria. Thus, there can be do doubt on the existence of post-synaptic dopamine receptors mediating vasodilation in certain vascular tissues.