Brain amines and peptides--their relevance to psychiatry.

The amine theory of affective disorder and the dopamine and endorphin theories of schizophrenia are controversial but heuristically valuable concepts that have emerged from the psychobiological revolution of the last decade. That revolution stemmed largely from the development of techniques for localizing and assaying neuroregulators and their receptors in the brain under normal, pathological and experimental conditions. The data thus obtained are reviewed here, and the current status of the emergent psychobiological hypotheses assessed.