Note from CCHR: The bottom line is that there is no medical/scientific evidence that can verify a diagnoses of schizophrenia as a “brain abnormality.”  There is, however,  scientific evidence that the drugs being prescribed cause brain abnormality.

Alliance for Human Research Protection – Feb 26, 2011

A long-awaited, 14 year magnetic imaging (MRI) follow-up study by Dr. Nancy Andreasen, involving 211 patients, documents progressive shrinkage of brain tissue volume in patients prescribed antipsychotics when they first experienced an episode of psychosis.

The findings, published in The Archives of General Psychiatry show a direct causal relationship between dosage, duration of exposure to antipsychotics, and brain shrinkage:

• Longer follow-up correlated with smaller brain tissue volumes and larger cerebrospinal fluid volumes.”

• Greater intensity of antipsychotic treatment was associated with indicators of generalized and specific brain tissue reduction after controlling for effects of the other 3 predictors.”

• More antipsychotic treatment was associated with smaller gray matter volumes. Progressive decrement in white matter volume was most evident among patients who received more antipsychotic treatment.”

Dr. Andreasen acknowledged, in an interview in The New York Times (2008), that she “sat on these findings for a couple of years”–deliberately holding back publication. “The reason I sat on these findings for a couple of years was that I just wanted to be absolutely sure it was true. My biggest fear is that people who need the drugs will stop taking them.”

“The big finding is that people with schizophrenia are losing brain tissue at a more rapid rate than healthy people of comparable age. Some are losing as much as 1 percent per year. That’s an awful lot over an 18-year period…Another thing we’ve discovered is that the more drugs you’ve been given, the more brain tissue you lose.”

http://www.ahrp.org/cms/content/view/606/9/

For a more detailed article on this study, click here: http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/mad-in-america/201102/andreasen-drops-bombshell-antipsychotics-shrink-the-brain

For more information on diagnosing patients with schizophrenia, visit this website on Loren Mosher, M.D., former Chief of Schizophrenia Research, National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) http://www.moshersoteria.com/