Neurotransmitters and the Lesch-Nyhan Syndrome

Abstract

Attempts to explain the pathogenesis of neuropsychiatric disorders are frustrated by the fragmentary information available relating neurochemistry to brain function. A large number of physiologically active substances that are thought to be involved in brain function are released during neuronal activity. Dopamine was among the first of the putative neurotransmitters or modulators to be discovered in the brain. The discovery that dopamine was deficient in the basal ganglia of patients with Parkinson's disease¹ was a major breakthrough in the understanding of neurologic disease. Demonstration of this neurochemical deficit led to the therapeutic trial and remarkable success of dopa, the metabolic . . .