An overabundance of dopamine in schizophrenics has yet to be found
In 1974, Dr. Micheal Bowers and his team had measured the level of dopamine metabolites in the cerebrospinal fluid of unmedicated schizophrenics and found them to be quite normal. “Our findings,” he wrote, “do not furnish neurochemical evidence for an over-arousal in these patients emanating from a midbrain dopamine system.” Others soon reported similar results. In 1975, Robert Post at the NIMH determined that HVA levels in the cerebrospinal fluid of twenty unmedicated schizophrenics “were not significantly different from controls.” Autopsy studies also revealed that the brain tissue of drug-free schizophrenics did not have abnormal levels of dopamine. In 1982, UCLA’s John Haracz reviewed this body of research and drew the obvious bottom-line conclusion: “These findings do not support the presence of elevated dopamine turnover in the brains of [unmedicated] schizophrenics.”
References
- Whitaker, Robert. Anatomy of an Epidemic Magic Bullets, Psychiatric Drugs, and the Astonishing Rise of Mental Illness in America 5. The Hunt for Chemical Imbalances (p. 104). New York , NY: Crown Publishing.
Metadata
Type:🔴 Tags: Biology / Biochemistry / Neuroscience / Pharmacology Status:☀️