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Antipsychotic drugs are increasingly used, often as first-line treatments for nonpsychotic as well as psychotic disorders, but questions remain about their long-term effects. To prospectively determine medication- and schizophrenia-related brain volume changes, researchers repeated magnetic resonance imaging in 211 patients with a first episode of schizophrenia or schizoaffective disorder (mean number of scans, 3; mean follow-up, 7.2 years).
Results were correlated with 6-month assessments of symptoms, illness severity, substance use, and antipsychotic drug use, obtained from multiple sources. Patients' previous exposure to antipsychotic drugs was minimal (median, 0.43 years). Antipsychotic drug classes were clozapine, nonclozapine atypical …