While serotonin dysfunction has been theorized in schizophrenia for decades, no study has directly tested whether serotonin release differs in affected individuals. To address this gap, researchers used PET imaging to compare frontal cortex serotonin release in 26 individuals with schizophrenia and 28 healthy controls. The study found that serotonin release in the frontal cortex was significantly higher in individuals with schizophrenia than in healthy participants.
Importantly, greater serotonin release was associated with more severe baseline negative symptoms and poorer functional outcomes. Exploratory analyses further showed that frontal cortex serotonin release was markedly higher in individuals with deficit schizophrenia compared with healthy individuals (mean difference 32.2%) and those with nondeficit schizophrenia (mean difference 28.9%). This study provides the first direct…
