Cause: Neuroleptics

Mad in America

In 1998 ... the University of Pennsylvania did an MRI study in which they studied people placed on neuroleptics. They found that indeed the brains of those people so treated started showing changes in brain volumes. So you start seeing a shrinkage of the frontal lobes and an enlargement of the basal ganglia.

So now we're seeing morphological changes in the brain. And here's the clincher: They found that those volume changes in the brain were associated with a worsening of the target symptoms. So the puzzle now all comes together, doesn't it? It fits with the World Health Organization's study. It tells you why people are becoming chronic -- because you're giving them an agent that causes an abnormality in brain function, that causes changes in the brain that lend themselves to greater psychosis.

Read the full article here: Interview: Robert Whitaker