Somatostatin and Neurotensin Systems in Schizophrenia

• Andrea Induni ^[1] ; Fernando Gil Zbinden ^[1] ; María Graciela López Ordieres ^[1]
  1. [1] Universidad de Buenos Aires
• Localización: Psychiatry and Neuroscience Update: From Epistemology to Clinical Psychiatry – Vol. IV / Pascual Ángel Gargiulo (ed. lit.), Humberto Luis Mesones Arroyo (ed. lit.), 2021, ISBN 978-3-030-61721-9, págs. 183-193
• Idioma: inglés
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• Resumen

  • Schizophrenia is a complex mental disease characterized by a pathological alteration of several interacting neurotransmitter systems rather than a specific dysfunction of a single neurotransmitter system. It is well-known that knowledge of the schizophrenia pathophysiology has currently advanced beyond dopamine dysfunction to include glutamate, GABA, serotonin, and acetylcholine systems, which may be interacting with neuropeptide systems. Schizophrenic patients show alterations in several brain functions that regulate cognitive, affective, motor, and sensory processing. Cognitive deficits, associated with dorsolateral prefrontal cortex dysfunction, are the result of abnormalities in GABA neurotransmission. GABA interneurons that contain parvalbumin and somatostatin are reduced in individuals with schizophrenia. Somatostatin is a tetradecapeptide whose main action is to control the hypothalamus release of growth hormone. Its distribution throughout the central nervous system, mainly in the GABA neurons, means that it could be implicated in schizophrenia. Furthermore, neurotensin is a tridecapeptide closely related to dopamine transmission that produces biochemical and behavioral effects after central administration resembles those observed by a systemic administration of antipsychotic agents. In general, peptides do not cross the blood-brain barrier properly; thus somatostatin and neurotensin analogs were synthesized to resist enzymatic degradation and to achieve a better entry into the brain in the hope of producing central effects. Many central peptide systems may be involved in the physiopathology of the schizophrenia, but the purpose was to describe somatostatin and neurotensin actions and their relationships with different neurotransmission systems involved in the disease.