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Antipsychotics cause brain shrinkage

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How Antipsychotics Cause Brain Damage

There are several ways in which antipsychotics are thought to cause brain damage. The brain damage associated with antipsychotic usage may directly influence the severity of cognitive symptoms of schizophrenia. Many users of antipsychotics experience cognitive deficits that are thought to be solely from their illness, when in reality they may be a result of the meds.

Prefrontal connectivity reductions: There is evidence derived from resting fMRI studies suggesting that connections in the prefrontal region of the brain are reduced as a result of antipsychotic treatment. A reduced number of connections may translate to reductions in complex thinking, planning, attention, emotional regulation, and memory.

Global brain volume loss: Studies have noted that antipsychotics reduce global brain volume. This means that a person?s brain with schizophrenia who has undergone years of antipsychotic treatment (especially at high doses), may display signs of neurodegeneration. Reductions in global brain volume means that nearly every aspect of brain functioning has potential to become impaired.

Grey matter volume loss: Grey matter is known to include various regions of the brain responsible for sensory perception, emotions, self-control, speech, decision making, and muscle control. Individuals taking antipsychotics experience reductions in grey matter volume, making it tougher to perform certain functions.

White matter volume loss: White matter is tissue that allows your brain to communicate with the central nervous system. It is comprised of myelin and axons, both of which facilitate chemical messages within the brain. Since those taking antipsychotics experience reductions in white matter, the communication system within their brain becomes impaired.



"Evidence that antipsychotics cause brain shrinkage has been accumulating over the last few years, but the psychiatric research establishment is finding its own results difficult to swallow [1].";

Inconvenient truths about antipsychotics should not be swept under the carpet [2].-- Joanna Moncrieff is the author of The Myth of the Chemical Cure, a widely-read book which challenges the entire concept of mental illness. In the book Dr. Moncrieff also makes the point that the brain shrinkage associated with a ?diagnosis? of ?schizophrenia? is in fact caused by the neuroleptic drugs, and is not, as psychiatrists claim, a consequence of the so-called illness.


The current paper updates the arguments, and was written specifically to address a re-assertion of the old dogma that it is the ?schizophrenia? that causes the brain shrinkage.

Here are two quotes:

"These researchers seem determined to prove that ?schizophrenia? causes brain shrinkage, although their data simply cannot establish this, as none of their subjects seem to have gone without drug treatment for any significant length of time. So even though their recent analysis once again confirms the damaging effects of antipsychotics, they conclude that the results demonstrate the need to make sure patients take, and do not stop, their antipsychotic medication."

"People need to know about this research because it indicates that antipsychotics are not the innocuous substances that they have frequently been portrayed as. We still have no conclusive evidence that the disorders labeled as schizophrenia or psychosis are associated with any underlying abnormalities of the brain, but we do have strong evidence that the drugs we use to treat these conditions cause brain changes."

Dr. Moncrieff refers to an animal study, and summarizes the findings as follows:

"After 18 months of treatment monkeys treated with olanzapine or haloperidol, at doses equivalent to those used in humans, had approximately 10% lighter brains than those treated with a placebo preparation." [3]
You can see an abstract of the original study here.



 
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More evidence that antipsychotics cause brains to shrink


The study, in the Archives of General Psychiatry, found that over seven years “ More antipsychotic drug treatment, including duration and intensity, was linked to greater declines in brain volume. Severity of disease, alcohol and illegal drug use had no effect.”

Despite this seeming damming evidence, the lead researcher didn’t want to come off as critical of the medications, no doubt because he knows where most of the research money comes from, so he was careful to caution everyone not to “jump to the conclusion” that this was “bad.”

Well, when they find evidence that suggests that “schizophrenia” makes a brain shrink, they somehow never imagine that it might NOT be bad. But here they found that severity of “disease” seemed to cause no shrinkage, and the medications did, and yet we shouldn’t “jump to the conclusion” that it is bad. read the rest

https://beyondmeds.com/2011/02/08/shrinkingbrains/
 
Even if true, someone with psychosis will be more functional on the drugs with reduced brain mass than they would be under full blown psychosis unmedicated
 
Hey Lucid,

First off I completely agree that someone in a full blown psychosis, who responds to antipsychotic treatment, is better off using antipsychotics (which damage a lot more than the brain fwiw, for anyone who doesn't know.) Antipsychotics DO have a significant place in the treatment of certain types of schizophrenia or other psychotic illnesses. The problem I've seen, working with violent special needs kids/adults, and people with certain types of schizophrenia (in a school setting, psychiatric ER, and long term care unit in a psychiatric hospital,) is that a significant portion of patients don't respond to antipsychotics other than getting really sleepy, feeling weird (even for them), motor problems, and that's about it. Yet, these patients, from what I've seen are still prescribed daily antipsychotics, even though the drugs offer little to no benefit and literally slowly kill the patients in a multitude of ways. Trying different types of antipsychotics is appropriate, but I've seen time and time again that patients, who don't respond in a positive manner are just left of on them, because, who knows, there is a lot of reasons (crappy reasons), but Doctors feel a responsibly to try to treat them, even after years of different meds and nothing but failures.

To give an example, I worked with a woman in her 60s or 70s who was in a long term psych ward who had a persistent delusional belief that she was 6-8 months pregnant. She didn't have outside support, so the commitment was justified, because there would be no way she could take care of herself alone. However, she was very nice, not dangerous in anyway, not unhappy, and no drug even touched her belief that she was pregnant. Also, she was happy about being "pregnant," yet she was always given a high dose of antipsychotics, that did nothing for her, didn't help her with any sort of independence, and didn't touch the delusional belief, and her delusional belief made her happy anyway! So why continue to give her drugs that are going to kill her eventually and cause uncomfortable side effects in the meantime, and cost a ton of money?

The above anecdote is not abnormal, I don't know the percentages, but a large number of patients do NOT benefit for this class of drugs, yet the drugs are continued anyway. I saw this when working with violent special needs patients too. It is now common for kids and adults with autism and other developmental problems, with any sort of behavioral problem (and often without behavioral problems,) to be given these drugs. Even after years of failures on multiple medications, the medications are continued anyway, for a number of reasons, but none that benefit the patient, and as research has shown are damaging to the patient's brain and other organs.

Even in schizophrenia, patients with "positive" symptoms (things "added", hallucinations, voices, random emotions, etc.) often do respond to anti-psychotics, and treating them is appropriate. But, to the best of my knowledge, patients with nothing but "negative symptoms" (things "subtracted", reduced emotions, not interacting in anyway with the outside world, lack of emotions other's would feel, etc.) are still given antipsychotics even though it is known that antipsychotics have NO EFFECT on "negative symptoms." Yet again, they're given these treatments, with the only results being side effects (severe side effects,) and an earlier death from the drugs themselves, not the disease.

Again, anti-psychotics are life saving in many cases, but they're continued, even when there is no benefit, because of Doctor's need to "do something," poor pharmaceutical understanding by Doctors (even many psychiatrist's,) pressure from pharmaceutical companies, pressure from hospitals, pressure from schools, pressure from families, and more I'm forgetting. It's sad, but the reality is many types of schizophrenia, autism, etc. have NO effective pharmaceutical treatment, and little to no benefit from various non-pharmaceutical therapies. But people's natural desire to help (and other's desire to make money,) ends up causing a worse life for the patient. Additionally, antipsychotics, such as Abilify are being touted as adjunct treatments to anti-depressants, again with no benefit to the patient (unless they have a psychotic depression,) with no evidence that they're helpful beyond the placebo effect, and with the patients, not being told about the extreme side effects from this class of drugs (such as an early death, brain damage, organ damage, motor coordination damage, loss of white blood cells, and more.) Anyway, that's been my experience in schools and working in psych hospitals (briefly I admit.)

(To be clear Lucid I'm not attacking your opinion, I agree with it in fact, antipsychotics are positively life saving in many many cases, but they're also a vivid example of over treatment for everyone's benefit except the patient's (not in all, but many cases, often with severe consequences for the patient. This is in the USA, I don't know how they're handled in other countries) Anyway, Peace!
 
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