ABSTRACT
Interest in potential abnormalities of the dopamine (DA) system in the etiology of schizophrenia, or at least in symptom manifestation of acute psychotic states has been a recurrent theme in schizophrenia research for over 40 years. This stemmed first from the key discovery that the common pharmacological effect of antipsychotic drugs was antagonism at DA receptors, and secondly from the observation that drugs that stimulated dopaminergic activity could provoke psychosis. However, until recently there has been relatively little direct evidence for anomalies in brain dopaminergic function in schizophrenia. Earlier reports from post mortem studies of elevated DA receptor density in schizophrenia turned out to be artifacts of long-term antipsychotic treatment. However, recent advances in neuroimaging technology has allowed the question of DA abnormalities in schizophrenia to be reevaluated and have provided exciting evidence that such anomalies may indeed exist.
