What Is the Dopamine Theory of Schizophrenia?

Schizophrenia is a devastating mental illness that incapacitates people and causing horrifying hallucinations and delusions appear to be real. The Dopamine Theory of Schizophrenia attempts to explain what happens in the brain to cause Schizophrenia.

History of Theory

• The Dopamine Theory of Schizophrenia was first presented in 1963. The researchers Carlsson and Lindqvist proposed the theory.

Regular Dopamine Functioning

• Dopamine was discovered in 1952 in Sweden. It is a naturally occurring neurotransmitter in the brain. It plays a role in the central nervous system and is linked with the brain's system of motivation and reward.

Schizophrenia

• Schizophrenia is a devastating mental illness which usually strikes men in their late teens or early adulthood, according to the National Institute of Mental Health. The illness consists of delusions, disordered thinking, movement disorders, flat affect, social withdrawal and cognitive deficits. Hearing "voices" is a common impairment of schizophrenia.

The Theory

• The Dopamine Theory of schizophrenia speculates that schizophrenia occurs when too much dopamine is produced in the brain. It also occurs when there are a high number of dopamine receptors in the brain or when the receptors are highly sensitive to dopamine.

Dopamine and Schizophrenia

• This excess dopamine floods the brain, causing a sort of "intoxication" and inhibiting functions. Excess amounts of dopamine causes the neurons to misfire causing hallucinations to exist in the outside world and making them easier to accept.