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According to the D₂dopamine receptor hypothesis of schizophrenia, there is an increased number of D₂receptors in the brains of schizophrenic patients than in those of healthy controls. We tested this hypothesis in 13 newly admitted neuroleptic-naive schizophrenic patients and 10 healthy volunteers using positron emission tomography.

The quantification of striatal D₂dopamine receptor density (B_max) and affinity (K_d) was done using an equilibrium model described for raclopride labeled with carbon 11.

No statistically significant alterations were found in D₂receptor densities or affinities between the patient and control groups. However, a subgroup of four patients with a relatively high striatal D₂dopamine density was identified. Two patients, especially, had D₂dopamine densities almost twice as high as the mean control B_maxvalue. The K_dvalues also tended to be higher in this subset of …