Abstract

AMENITY OF CHOLINERGIC CIRCUIT IN SCHIZOPHRENIA

Bharti Chaudhary, Sonam Agarwal and Renu Bist*

ABSTRACT

Schizophrenia is a heterogeneous complex psychiatric disorder with a broad range of symptomatic and neuropsychological disturbances including positive, negative, cognitive, mood and motor symptoms. Causes of schizophrenia involve both a genetic factor and environmental stress. Men affected earlier than women due to the possible influence of the female hormone estrogen. Alteration in the neurotransmitter levels such as acetylcholine, dopamine, glutamate and serotonin take place in the schizophrenia which is responsible for the positive and negative symptom of schizophrenia. Central cholinergic circuits participate in aspects of memory formation, motivational and volitional behaviors. Each of these functions altered in neuropsychiatric disorder. The cholinergic system consist of two families of receptor (muscarinic and nicotinic cholinergic) which use ACh as a neurotransmitter. Acetylcholine is a component of cholinergic circuit which is responsible for disorder of schizophrenia. Disturbance in the muscarinic and nicotinic (7- nAChRs) cholinergic system leads to reduce level of muscarinic and nicotinic receptor in the schizophrenia patient. Different agonist and antagonists of the cholinergic system help elucidate mechanism of cholinergic neurotransmission.

Keywords: Schizophrenia, acetylcholine, muscarinic, nicotinic, behavior, memory.