Elevation of brain neuroleptic/dopamine receptors in schizophrenia.

To test the dopamine hypothesis of schizophrenia the authors measured specific 3H-neuroleptic/dopamine binding sites in three dopamin-rich regions of 59 postmortem normal human brains and 50 postmortem brains from schizophrenic patients using 3H-haloperidol and 3H-spiperone. The binding of 2 nM 3H-haloperidol and of 1 nM 3H-spiperone was significantly elevated in the brains from schizophrenic patients. The brain regions from patients who had no history of being treated with neuroleptic drugs also exhibited significantly higher binding of the 3H-neuroleptics. These results are compatible with the hypothesis that schizophrenia may be associated with an overactivity of postsynaptic dopamine receptors.