The anterior cingulate cortex is a brain area of potential importance to our understanding of the pathophysiology of schizophrenia. Previous studies suggest abnormalities in the glutamatergic neurotransmission in the anterior cingulate cortex in schizophrenia patients. In the present study we used quantitative autoradiography to investigate the binding of [ 3 H]MK801, [ 3 H]L-␣ -amino-3-hydroxy-5-methyl-4-isoxazole propionic acid (AMPA),Glutamate is the primary excitatory neurotransmitter in the human brain. Excitatory synaptic activity conveyed by glutamate is mediated by three pharmacologically defined subtypes of ionotropic glutamate receptors: N-methyl-D-aspartate (NMDA), D, L-␣ -amino-3-hydroxy-5-methyl-4-isoxazole propionic acid (AMPA) and kainate. The NMDA receptor comprises two subunits that are coded by genes designated NR1 and NR2A-D. Non-NMDA glutamate receptor subunits comprise GluR1-4, which are AMPA-preferring, and GluR5-7, KA1 and KA2, which are kainate preferring (Hollmann and Heinemann 1994).Pharmacological and biochemical data have suggested deficiency in glutamatergic transmission in schizo- Although it is usually the NMDA receptor that is implicated in schizophrenia, disturbances of any of the glutamate receptors could result in a condition that produces the appearance of an abnormally functioning NMDA receptor. For example, NMDA receptors are blocked by magnesium at physiological concentrations, and AMPA receptor-mediated depolarization of the membrane extrudes magnesium from the NMDA receptor complex (Reynolds and Miller 1990). Therefore, a pathological change in the function of non-NMDA receptors may affect the NMDA receptor.Given the possibility of glutamate receptor dysfunction in schizophrenia, the expression of ionotropic glutamate receptors has been studied in post-mortem brain of schizophrenia patients and abnormalities in glutamate receptors have been reported in many brain areas (reviewed by Meador-Woodruff and Healy 2000; see also Deakin and Simpson 1997). Some of these reports have not been replicated and have been done primarily in membrane preparations. These studies illustrate that the occurrence and nature of glutamate receptor abnormalities in schizophrenia can differ between brain regions.The anterior cingulate cortex (ACC; Brodmann's area 24) is localized within a gyrus on the media surface of each hemisphere, bordering on the corpus callosum. It receives projections from the amygdala (Vogt and Pandya 1987), thalamus (Vogt et al. 1979) and hippocampus (Vogt et al. 1979;Tamminga et al. 2000), possibly excitatory in nature. Abnormalities in glutamatergic neurotransmission have been reported in the ACC in schizophrenia. Recent studies using post-mortem human ACC indicate a dramatic increase in vertical glutamatergic axons in the superficial layers of ACC in schizophrenia (Benes 2000) and imaging studies suggest impaired activation of ACC in patients with schizophrenia during performance tasks, which could be attributed to a reduced efferent glutamatergic signal from the hippo...