Lower levels of kainate receptors, but not AMPA or NMDA receptors, in Brodmann's area (BA) 9, but not BA 10, from a subgroup of people with schizophrenia who have a marked deficit in cortical muscarinic M1 receptors.

In a previous study on ionotropic glutamate receptors, we have shown that [H]kainate, but not [H]AMPA or [H]NMDA, receptor binding was lower in Brodmann's area (BA) 9 from people with schizophrenia. Subsequently, we defined a subgroup within the syndrome of schizophrenia who are termed the Muscarinic Receptor Deficit subgroup of Schizophrenia (MRDS) as they have markedly lower levels of [H]pirenzepine binding to the muscarinic M1 receptor. The previous glutamate receptor study did not contain enough people with MRDS and other forms of schizophrenia (non-MRDS) to study any subgroup-specific differences. Hence, in this study we first measured [H]pirenzepine binding to the muscarinic M1 receptor to confirm the MRDS subgroup, then measured [H]kainate, [H]AMPA and [H]NMDA receptor binding using autoradiography in BA 9 from people with MRDS, non-MRDS and controls. We also measured binding in BA 10 as our gene expression study indicated that BA 10 is disproportionally affected by the molecular pathology of schizophrenia. As expected, due to case-selection criteria, [H]pirenzepine binding to the M1 receptor was lower in BA 9 and BA 10 from people with MRDS, although more profound in BA 10. [H]kainate receptor binding was lower only in BA 9 from people with MRDS, while [H]AMPA and [H]NMDA receptor binding was not altered in either region. Muscarinic M1 receptors and kainate receptors are both located on glutamatergic pyramidal neurons so a perturbation in both receptors could indicate altered excitatory neurotransmission in BA 9 from people with MRDS.