A New Treatment Pathway for Schizophrenia?

Pharmacologic interventions in schizophrenia have focused primarily on the dopamine receptor and, to a lesser extent, on the serotonin and glutamate receptors. However, these treatments are imperfect, particularly in treating negative symptoms.

Dopamine is modulated through the central muscarinic system, a complex network with at least nine major projecting muscarinic cholinergic pathways and widely distributed terminals and postsynaptic receptors. Patients with schizophrenia demonstrate low muscarinic receptor binding in the prefrontal cortex, hippocampal formation, and striatum. Recent studies have linked differences in the muscarinic M₄ and M₅ receptor subtypes to psychotic-like phenomena in animal models. In a previous study of dementia …