A study I haven't enjoyed reading showing loss of grey matter in children with a diagnosis of schizophrenia.

MAPPING ADOLESCENT BRAIN CHANGE REVEALS DYNAMIC WAVE OF ACCELERATED GRAY
MATTER LOSS IN VERY EARLY-ONSET SCHIZOPHRENIA
http://www.loni.ucla.edu/~thompson/MEDIA/PNAS/Schizo_article_PNAS_pdf.pdf
<http://www.loni.ucla.edu/%7Ethompson/MEDIA/PNAS/Schizo_article_PNAS_pdf.pdf>

At a mental health event a few weeks ago an advocate spoke to a doctor
telling parents their child's brain would deteriorate through
schizophrenia unless medicated using antipsychotics. I thought this was
bullshit like the "chemical imbalance in the brain" line. I may be
wrong. From this study which uses a small sample of patients, controls
and medicated controls with psychotic but not affective disorders other
than schizophrenia, it shows that a child's brain will deteriorate and
this is caused by the 'disease' process. I'm still not ready to give up
on the idea that psychosis may have other significance than brain
malfunction but its a powerful piece of evidence that it is a disease in
the classic sense of mental illness.

I'm not capable of assessing for quality. The small numbers would be
something I'd ordinarily take exception to but the authors suggest the
results are consistent. The loss in grey matter is also observed in
children without a diagnosis of schizophrenia or not taking medication
however it is significantly larger in children with a diagnosis. Clearly
the change from child to adult is associated with a loss in grey matter
but to a lesser degree than those who recieve a diagnosis of schizophrenia.

To the advocate I'd say that this paper is a research paper. The
diagnostic criteria used is DSM-IIIR which is not used in practice and
in the UK, so the results may not be applicable unless the same level of
rigour is used to identify schizophrenia. The paper also goes on to say
that schizophrenia is not only biological in cause and there are
environmental aspects. For the Psychosis Not Otherwise Specfied control
group the loss in grey matter was "subtle but significant" and none of
the group recieved a diagnosis of schizophrenia at follow up so getting
the diagnosis right is vital before giving a diagnosis of schizophrenia.

The thought I have is that many things could be looked at under the lens
of an fMRI scanner and many observations made about the way the brain is
somehow different. I'd be interested to see if there's been scans done
on people who have recovered from schizophrenia or have survived it
without medication. The latter group would be a useful control to see
the effect of medication on developmental neurobiology.

Information about the brain degeneration aspect of schizophrenia is
explained in a simpler form below but the study, though very complex for
anyone (like me) who knows little about neuroscience, is worth a read..
http://www.schizophrenia.com/research/schiz.brain.htm