mesocortical pathway, dopamine pathways tracts, brain pathways tracts, limbic system, midbrain ventral tegmental area, emotions, positive negative psychotic symptoms, schizophrenia, substantia nigra, dopamine, serotonin, neurotransmitters, brain dopamine pathway pathways, chemical messengers, corpus striatum, caudate nucleus, putamen, globus pallidus TM Mesocortical pathway
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mesocortical pathway, dopamine pathways tracts, brain pathways tracts, limbic system, midbrain ventral tegmental area, emotions, positive negative psychotic symptoms, schizophrenia, substantia nigra, dopamine, serotonin, neurotransmitters, brain dopamine pathway pathways, chemical messengers, corpus striatum, caudate nucleus, putamen, globus pallidus TM

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The mesocortical pathway is a pathway in the brain that connects the midbrain ventral tegmental area (an area in the lower part of the brain) to the limbic system (an area near the edge of the middle part of the brain that is important for producing emotions). This pathway is thought to bring about positive and negative psychotic symptoms. Positive psychotic symptoms are exaggerated experiences such as seeing or hearing things that are not really present. Negative psychotic symptoms are diminished experiences such as not moving or speaking much.

The mesocortical pathway is also thought to be important for bringing about cognitive side effects in reaction to a type of antipsychotic medications known as neuroleptics. The chemical messenger, dopamine, travels along the mesolimbic pathway. Dopamine also travels along the mesolimbic, nigrostriatal, and tuberoinfundibular pathways. The word "mesolimbic" comes from the Greek word "meso," which means "middle" (in this case it refers to midbrain) and the word "cortical" comes from the Latin word "cortex", meaning "bark" (referring to an outer part, like the bark of a tree). In this case, the word "cortical" refers to the fact that the pathway goes to the limbic cortical system.

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