In search of drugs to treat hypertension and Parkinson’s disease - highly selective DRD1 agonists—Xiao et al. (2021) determined near-atomic-resolution cryo-EM structures of activated DRD1 with a downstream Gs effector revealing a conserved motif for dopaminergic receptor recognition with catecholamine agonists. Here, DRD1 is linked to Parkinson disease.