Dopamine Hypothesis Imaging Studies

The dopamine hypothesis for schizophrenia was posed some 40 years ago (Carlsson and Lindqvist 1963), but evidence in living humans supporting this hypothesis has been lacking until recently.  Positron emission tomography (PET) and single photon emission computerized tomography (SPECT) imaging techniques have been developed to analyze dopamine changes in response to amphetamine administration or to a chemical that blocks dopamine production.  This next section will briefly review some articles supporting the dopamine hypothesis .