A study published today has confirmed a link between antipsychotic medication and a slight, but measureable, decrease in brain volume in patients with schizophrenia.

Do antipsychotics shrink your brain?

David Lewis, a neuroscientist and psychiatrist at the University of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, found that healthy non-human primates, given doses of antipsychotics similar to those given to humans, showed brain volume reductions of around 10%, mostly attributable to loss of the glial cells that support and protect ...

Is brain shrinkage from antipsychotics reversible?

Evidence of the rapidity at which antipsychotics can affect brain volume in humans was recently provided by Tost and associates. These investigators found a significant, reversible decrease in striatal volume in healthy subjects within 2 hours after they were treated intravenously with haloperidol.