Schizophrenia: A Subcortical Neurotransmitter Imbalance Syndrome?
- 1 January 1990
- journal article
- research article
- Published by Oxford University Press (OUP) in Schizophrenia Bulletin
- Vol. 16 (3), 425-432
- https://doi.org/10.1093/schbul/16.3.425
Abstract
Recent animal experiments suggest that glutamate plays a fundamental role in the control of psychomotor activity. This is illustrated by the finding that even in the virtually complete absence of dopamine, a marked behavioral activation is produced in mice following suppression of glutamatergic neurotransmission. This article discusses the possibility that a deficient activity within the cortico-striatal glutamatergic pathway is an important pathophysiological component in some cases of schizophrenia and that glutamatergic agonists may prove beneficial in this disorder. In a broader perspective, schizophrenia may be looked upon as a syndrome induced by a neurotranmitter imbalance in a feedback-regulated system, where dopamine and glutamate play a crucial role in controlling arousal and the processing of signals from the outer world to the cerebral cortex via the thalamus.This publication has 11 references indexed in Scilit:
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