Recent basic findings in support of excitatory amino acid hypotheses of schizophrenia

1. Several clinical and post-mortem tissue findings have suggested a role for excitatory amino acid neuronal systems in the pathophysiology of schizophrenia. 2. These include the ability of NMDA antagonists, phencyclidine and ketamine, to cause both negative and positive symptoms in healthy subjects, and abnormalities in the densities of some types of excitatory amino acid receptors in the postmortem tissue of schizophrenic brains. 3. The present review describes recent basic findings that have examined the involvement of excitatory amino acids in the mechanism of action of antipsychotic drugs. These include studies on the functional links between glutamatergic and dopaminergic systems, effect of acute and chronic antipsychotic drug treatment on excitatory amino acid function, and stress-induced activation of excitatory amino acid release, in particular in the prefrontal cortex.