Another study showing antipsychotics reduce brain volume.

The Influence of Chronic Exposure to Antipsychotic Medications on Brain
Size before and after Tissue Fixation: A Comparison of Haloperidol and
Olanzapine in Macaque Monkeys
http://www.nature.com/npp/journal/v30/n9/abs/1300710a.html

This would disturb anyone with schizophrenia who happily accepts their
drug treatment and also anyone who likes monkeys..

"Three groups of six macaque monkeys each were exposed to oral
haloperidol, olanzapine or sham for a 17–27 month period. The resulting
plasma drug levels were comparable to those seen in subjects with
schizophrenia treated with these medications. After the exposure, we
observed an 8–11% reduction in mean fresh brain weights as well as left
cerebrum fresh weights and volumes in both drug-treated groups compared
to sham animals. The differences were observed across all major brain
regions (frontal, parietal, temporal, occipital, and cerebellum), but
appeared most robust in the frontal and parietal regions. "

Anyone who knows the history of antipsychotics knows when they were
first introduced they were described as a chemical lobotomy. This was
because they created the same effect without carving out a person's
brain. Clearly they are actually damaging people's brains after all.

Thoughts on how to rectify the disability of schizophrenia

I must admit my knowledge of equality other than in every day life is
very limited. All I know is the 5% in employment and education figure
for people with schizophrenia (Epsilon study though I've not read the
paper; it's one of the lowest rates in Europe). Oh and the info about
one of the root causes of the overdiagnosis of black people. Frankly I
don't feel my input is worth something unless I know my stuff. I've
spent over 2 years learning a lot about schizophrenia. (Never had the
diagnosis. Was diagnosed with schizoaffective ages ago but my last
diagnosis is mixed affective disorder and the last psychiatrist I saw
didn't give me a diagnosis).

In terms of equality the only thing I'd suggest would be based around
employment. This sort of forces the severely mentally ill back into
public sight. It's applied social contact theory which I feel is going
to be the only real way to make a change. An employment scheme linked to
something like Affirmative Action would be my suggestion for what will
benefit the equality of the mentally ill in the long term. It's very
simplistic though.

People with sz may still face the stigma without people's attitudes
truly changing in the short term. They'll continue to suffer from the
things which can't be controlled, i.e. how people talk about them behind
their back or how they're treated less well because they seem mad or
react in unusual ways. The individuals would suffer and this is not what
I want but without their sacrifice the root stigma of mental illness
will never change.

During the creation of the asylum system (The Great Confinement as
Foucault calls it) the expression of madness became hidden for
generations. People forgot that madness is normal in developed world
nations and the systems and cultures evolved without it. Medication
arrived and it continued the confinement. Remember: the meds don't help
the core pathology, i.e. the delusions and hallucinations. They just
suppress the expression of behaviour. Madness is still hidden and
society continues to expect that people aren't a bit crazy. The Great
Confinement is probably a major part of the WHO IPSS result, the one
which shows on 2, 5 and 10 year follow up (and has been replicated)
people in the developing world with schizophrenia do better on social
and clinical outcomes than those in the US and UK. Developing world
nations never experienced the Great Confinement though as they become
influenced by the methods of Western psychiatry they may find they too
start to see a worsening in clinical and social outcomes (social
includes occupational I think).

I think many people with schizophrenia are resistant to going back to
work and I think NICE are unlikely to commission an Affirmative
Action-bnased employment scheme. Sadly I just don't see how any change
is going to be made unless it is mandatory for organisations to fulfil
their equality duty. I suspect if anyone surveyed the national mental
health charities to see how many people with schizophrenia work there
(paid work) and how many of their senior management tier have ever been
diagnosed with schizophrenia or, perhaps more simply, have ever been
sectioned under the Mental Health Act 1983 I think we'd find a lot of
them aren't living up to their mission statements. I'm sure this would
be true of NICE, the Department of Health and many other healthcare
organisations. Wouldn't that be an interesting survey eh? The idea of
sectioning as a proxy for severe mental illness separates the wheat from
the chaff, i.e. it imposes a hierarchy of disability.

There is still such a long way to go.

Those drugs which killed so many elderly people can be used on children
and for the rest of their lives. One of those drugs, clozapine, directly
killed 2 people in less than 5 years and has contributed to the
significant reduced life expectancy of the 6,000-7,000 people prescribed
it. These drugs are called "antipsychotics" but they may not be
antipsychotic, i.e. they may not actively stop delusions and
hallucinations which is what the public and patients expect these drugs
to do.

Electro-convulsive therapy is another extreme treatment the patient is
shocked to cause a seizure but has been found to be as effective as sham
ECT (where no current is passed) in the long term. Some people have died
because of this treatment and others have had detrimental side effects.
It has been used on pregnant women and many others but a recent review
of trials shows this treatment to be ineffective.

The Mental Health Act 1983 amendments allow for a person to be
incarcerated without having committed a serious crime but for being at
risk of committing a serious crime, a risk solely determined by a
psychiatrist; they may be hospitalised without treatment nor need for
any treatment to exist so this is little different from imprisonment in
the aspect of loss of liberty, society's greatest punishment which is
only allowed to be applied with the rigour and process of the criminal
justice system.

Of the 6,000 or so completed suicides every year around 20% are by
people diagnosed with schizophrenia; those who don't take their life
still die 20 years younger than the average person.

Two useful research software

These are two interesting packages, the first is a free version and the
second is one which is pay for but has a free option.

I've used Mendeley during the beta stage and it's an excellent program.
I could drag and drop papers or URLs to be indexed. It would
automatically fill in the details and it was reasonably reliable at
getting these right. At some point the drag and drop feature for PDFs
stopped working properly so I stopped using it but it's an excellent
package apart from that bug.
http://www.mendeley.com/

Zotero is the open source equivalent. It's totally free I think. I've
not tried it so can't comment further.
https://www.zotero.org/

Comedy science night

http://brightclub.wordpress.com/

Science and psychic powers

I've had strange experiences which seem beyond the realms of reality.
Powers of prediction, if only I knew how to use them and interpret what
they meant. Powers beyond what modern science can explain as possible.

There are published examples too if people would be willing to look for
them and read them. There are powers which people yet understand.

But these powers and events which seem psychic are not predictable, at
least not in my experience. I am careful to stay away from the biases
which would be unscientific.

What I mean is testing these psychic powers and remembering that they
don't work. Let's say I tossed a coin three times and predicted the
right side it would land. It's within the realms of chance for this to
be possible. Let's say I tried it another day and got all three wrong.
This is the sort of testing which many people would avoid. They might
forget the three incorrect predictions and tell the story or remember
the time they got it right.

It's not to say this potential doesn't exist. It's just to understand
that it isn't predictable and for many people it may not be real. It may
be a product of remembering the times the guesses were right and
forgetting the times the guesses were wrong.

As a technique for schizophrenia and other mental disorders which
involve quasi- or pseudo-psychic experiences it is useful to teach
people to be scientific about their experiences.

To die would be the best hing

To live....isn't.