Antipsychotic Medications and the Brain

Research Summary

Science Treatment Interventions

Changes in brain structure are caused both by the disease process of schizophrenia and bipolar disorder and by the antipsychotic drugs used to treat these diseases. Different antipsychotic drugs may have different effects. The structural brain changes caused by antipsychotic drugs used to treat schizophrenia and bipolar disorder are similar in kind to structural brain changes caused by medications used to treat Parkinson’s disease, epilepsy and other brain diseases, and it is a mistake to characterize them as an indication that these drugs are dangerous. Many medications widely regarded as beneficial are effective precisely because of their structural impact on the part of the body they treat.

It is also important to study the brain changes caused by antipsychotic drugs because they may shed light on how these drugs work and/or predict the risk of side effects. The merits of antipsychotic use additionally need to be considered within context of the considerable impacts of not using them, which include early mortality and heightened risk for arrest, incarceration, homelessness, victimization and violence, including suicide.

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