Posted by Paul the Pharmacist on March 29, 2001 at 02:28:14:
Some authors think theyre may be a connection between point five and Schizophrenia although this has never been proven I guess Im thinking of riso
There is a relationship between schizophrenia and dopamin. If there is indeed a relationship between some forms of schizophrenia and point five there may be a relationship between point five and brain dopamine
There are two types of schizophrenic sympoms positive and negative. The positive symptoms are no deemed positive in the feeling sense that something is very good but in the thinking sense that something is there.The positive symptoms ofs schizophrenia are hallycinations voices thought disorders erc. The negative symptoms are the apathy and withdrawal.
The positive symptoms of schizophrenia are defititly linked t excess dopamine activity in the mesolimbic portion of the brain. This was discovered accidently in the 70s i believe. Patients were coming into the Er with classic symptoms of Paranoid schizophrenia. Yer in a few hours they would recover and ask t go home. this does not happen in true cases of paranooid schizophrenia as it is a long standing chronic disease quite resistant to treatment.
These quicky cases were investigated and they all had one thing in common methamphetamine abuse in a long term chronic sense.So the pharmacology of methamphetamine was studied carefully and it was found to increase the action of brain dopamine
Ir was reasoned that the hallucinations and thought disorders of schizophrenia were do t excess dopamine actitty in the brain. this jives with the thorazine haldol treatment of Schizophrenia. thorazine blocks the dopamine -2 receptor in the mesolymbic system and relieves the rhought disorder and hallucinations. If dopamine is blocked in the striatil system you will have the symptoms of Parkinsons disease and this is one of the side effects of long term high dose thorazine treatment calle dpseudoparkinsonism.
The negative symptoms of schizophrenia (social withdrawal apathy) do not involve dopamine but sertain serotonin (serotonin-2)receptors . if these receptors are blocked with drugs like Clozaril and Zyprexia and risperidol you get some relief from the negative symtoms
Therefore you can see the link between dopamine and serotonin and possibly some aspects of point five
One note -there aree many different serotonin receptors with a lot of different actions and the whole serotonin system is quite complicated. For instance if you block the serotonin 3 receptor with drugs like zofran you get godd relief from a lot of the nausea and vomitin gso rampant with cancer chemo drugs.
Its late so PMM