Eye-blinking and cerebral ventricular size in chronic schizophrenic patients.

Spontaneous eye-blinking, a possible measure of central dopaminergic activity, was studied in 55 drug-free chronic schizophrenic patients subdivided by cerebral ventricular size. Blink rates were higher in schizophrenic patients than in normal control subjects, regardless of cerebral ventricle size. Neuroleptics lowered blink rates in patients with normal ventricles but did not affect blink rates in patients with large ventricles. Insofar as blinking is a dopaminergic parameter, these findings suggest that the dopamine hypothesis of schizophrenia is most relevant in patients with normal ventricles.