Schizophrenia: Impaired activity of the selective dopamine neurons

(Goethe University Frankfurt) Schizophrenia is not only associated with hallucinations and delusions, but also with cognitive deficits and impairments of the emotional drive. Until now, the reason for this has not been sufficiently understood for a therapy with drugs to be developed. Now a German-American team of researchers reported that in a mouse model the dopamine neurons that are relevant for emotional and cognitive processing show an altered activity.