Harsh Reality of Antipsychotics: Brain Shrinkage

2025 update : way back in 2010, a neuropsych doc who became a good friend and ally, was the first to explicitly call what we’re dealing with BRAIN INJURY! I remember coming out with that and there was some pushback. Not everyone wanted to know that it was really that bad. Now it’s the common way of framing the issue when we’re gravely impacted. see: “This is a brain injury situation”

Joanna Moncrieff revisits a very important issue…one of which has been discussed on Beyond Meds many times. I like to remind people that “antipsychotics” are really misnamed. They are a class of drugs called neuroleptics and quite often do not do anything at all to mitigate psychosis. They are major tranquilizers and neurotoxic drugs that harm and use should be minimized as much as possible.

From Joanna Moncrieff’s site:

Antipsychotics and brain shrinkage: an update

Evidence that antipsychotics cause brain shrinkage has been accumulating over the last few years but the psychiatric research establishment is finding its own results difficult to swallow. A new paper by a group of American researchers once again tries to ‘blame the disease,’ a time honoured tactic for diverting attention from the nasty and dangerous effects of some psychiatric treatments. In 2011, these researchers, led by the former editor of the American Journal of Psychiatry, Nancy Andreasen, reported follow up data for their study of 211 patients diagnosed for the first time with an episode of ‘schizophrenia’. They found a strong correlation between the level of antipsychotic treatment someone had taken over the course of the follow up period, and the amount of shrinkage of brain matter as measured by repeated MRI scans. The group concluded that “antipsychotics have a subtle but measurable influence on brain tissue loss” (1). (read the rest)

Brain shrinkage or not, it’s clear that psych drugs, in general, can negatively impact the brain in numerous ways.

More on Beyond Meds about psych drugs and brain injury of various kinds:

• Dear psychiatrist part two: benzos and brain damage
• Medically induced illness: iatrogenic injury
• Neuropsych doctor confirms thoughts about psychiatric drug iatrogenisis, PTSD, brain injury
• “This is a brain injury situation”
• Psych meds can shrink the brain, but meditation is found to increase brain size: heal your brain!
• Sleep, insomnia and iatrogenic injury – an update
• More evidence that antipsychotics cause brains to shrink
• Yes, psych meds DO shrink brains
• Psychiatric Drugs as Agents of Trauma — “Drug Stress Trauma Syndrome”

Don’t despair — we can heal: Neuroplasticity: enormous implications for anyone who has been labeled with a psychiatric illness

More posts that feature Joanna Moncrieff’s work

*it is potentially dangerous to come off medications without careful planning. Please be sure to be well educated before undertaking any sort of discontinuation of medications: Psychiatric drug withdrawal and protracted withdrawal syndrome round-up

It’s become clear to me that whenever it’s possible that it’s helpful for folks who’ve not begun withdrawal to make a careful plan prior to starting. That means learning how to profoundly nourish your body/mind and spirit prior to beginning a withdrawal. For suggestions on how to go about doing that check the drop-down menus on this site. Anything that helps you learn how to live well can be part of your plan. That plan will look different for everyone as we learn to follow our hearts and find our own unique path. Start to consider diet, exercise and movement, meditation/contemplation etc. . The body will start letting us know what it needs as we learn to pay attention. Take it slow. Allow yourself time to learn to listen.

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