Antipsychotic Drugs Associated with Brain Volume Loss in Schizophrenia Patients

Researchers at the University of Cambridge have found a link between antipsychotic medication and a decrease in brain volume in patients with schizophrenia.

The study that also included researchers from the University of Oulu, Finland, found that antipsychotic medication-use did increase the risk of brain volume loss. However, the decrease was slight and didn't affect the patients' cognitive function and symptoms.

Schizophrenia is a chronic brain disorder that affects 24 million people worldwide. Symptoms of the condition include mostly auditory delusions.

Scientists have known that people with schizophrenia tend to lose brain cells at a much faster rate than other people, but nobody knows why this happens. The current study has found that the drugs used to treat the condition are associated with decrease in brain volume. Also, higher the dose of the drug, higher was the loss of brain cells.

For the study, researchers compared brain scans of 33 patients with schizophrenia with that of 71 control subjects over a period of nine years. Participants were 34 years old when the study began. The team found that people with schizophrenia lost brain volume at a rate of 0.7 percent each year, while the rate was 0.5 percent per year for the control group, according to a news release.

"We all lose some brain tissue as we get older, but people with schizophrenia lose it at a faster rate. We've shown that this loss seems to be linked to the antipsychotic medication people are taking. Research like this where patients are studied for many years can help to develop guidelines about when clinicians can reduce the dosage of antipsychotic medication in the long term treatment of people with schizophrenia," said Juha Veijola from the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Oulu, Finland.

The study is published in the journal PLOS One.