Photon induced dissociation investigations of neutral tyramine and dopamine are carried out with synchrotron vacuum uRraviolet photoionization mass spectrometry and theoretical calculations. At low photon energy, only molecular ions are measured by virtue of nearthreshold photoionization. While increasing photon energy to 11.7 eV or more, four distinct fragment ions are obtained for tyramine and dopamine, respectively. Besides, the ionization energies of tyramine and dopamine are determined to be 7.984-0.05 and 7.674-0.05 eV by measuring the photoionization efficiency curves of corresponding molecular ions. With help of density function theory calculations, the detailed fragmentation pathways are established as well. These two molecular cations have similar aminoethyl group elimination pathways, CTHsO2＋ （m/z=124） and C7H8O＋ （m/z=108） are supposed to be generated by the McLafferty rearrangement via γ-hydrogen （7-H） shift inducing β-fission. And CH2NH2＋ is proposed to derive from the direct fission of C7-C8 bond. Besides, the McLafferty rearrangement and the C7-C8 bond fission are validated to be dominant dissociation pathways for tyramine and dopamine cations.
