If you could get what you need...

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what would it look like?

Wouldn't look like anything, would only feel like.

It would look like a young healthy brain with a genius IQ. That's what I want for Christmas.

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Phil: It would look like a young healthy brain with a genius IQ. That's what I want for Christmas.

I can appreciate your concerns about the health of your brain. It's something I remain concerned about too, especially as it pertains to the various drugs that individuals are placed on. That's not what I'm "supposed" to say, of course. I'm supposed to say, "Oh, take your drugs -- they're going to help you!" but there is evidence that these drugs actually produce neurological damage, particularly over the long term.

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As for the abnormalities that researchers have found with brain scans, Mosher thinks the antischizophrenic medication accounts for much of this. He says, "The Germans, who invented neuropathology, looked at the brains of thousands of schizophrenics before there were any neuroleptics. And they were never able to find anything. They never reported increased ventricular volume, which at postmortem you can measure quite easily. And they also never reported any specific cellular pathology, and they studied many, many, many brains." He adds that "there are a whole lot of people who don't have schizophrenia and also have enlarged ventricles. And there are people who have other psychiatric conditions who have enlarged ventricles, and there are a number of known causes of enlarged ventricles that are not schizophrenia. So, yes, there is a statistical difference, but it is not specific."

"On the other hand," Mosher continues, "there are studies that have shown that people treated with neuroleptics have changes in brain structure that are at least associated with drug treatment, dosage, and duration -- and have been shown to increase over time as drugs are given." He cites one "horrific study" of children between the ages of 10 and 15 in which the researchers measured the volumes of the kids' cortexes. "The cortex is what you think with, the part on the outside," Mosher explains. Over time, "They watched the cortical volume of these young people decline, while the cortical volume of the nonschizophrenic controls was expanding because they were adolescents and still growing." The researcher concluded that their schizophrenia had caused the decrease in the subjects. "And yet every single one was taking neuroleptic drugs," Mosher says.

Source: Still Crazy After All These Years

See also: An Interview With Robert Whitaker


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Those kinds of studies concern me, they concern me very much and I think you're entitled to that kind of information so you can make your own best choices. I would encourage you to research the drugs you're on with great intensity as well as methods people have found for safely withdrawing from them and coping adequately without them. By the way, I don't think it's "fair" that you should have to do so, anymore than I think it's "fair" that you have this on your plate at all. However, I do recognize that no one is likely to care more than you or be impacted by some actions more than you. That's why it ends up being yet something else you have to deal with on your plate. Not easy, but necessary.

Meantime, there is no doubt in my mind that you are certainly highly intelligent. I think that's something you should be allowed to keep and nurture, regardless of whether it takes you to the realms of genius or not.