Antipsychotic deflates the brain : Nature News: "Dopamine downsizing
Haloperidol has a number of side effects, although many of these are minor and recede within weeks of starting treatment. With few better alternatives, psychiatrists have prescribed the drug for more than 40 years to treat people suffering from hallucinations, delirium, delusions and hyperactivity.
Like most antipsychotics, haloperidol blocks the D2 receptor, which is sensitive to dopamine. The drug stifles the elevated dopamine activity that is thought to underlie psychosis. D2 receptors are abundant in the striatum, where their activity regulates gene expression. But, until now, no one knew that blocking the receptors would rapidly alter the brain's physical structure.
Haloperidol shrank volunteers' striatums in two hours, but they bounced back within a day.Tost, H et al.
'This is the fastest change in brain volume ever seen,' says Andreas Meyer-Lindenberg, professor of psychiatry and psychotherapy at the University of Heidelberg in Mannheim, Germany, and a lead author on the report in Nature Neuroscience1. 'Studies have found that the volume of brain regions changes over a number of days, but this is in one to two hours, and in half that time it bounces back.'"
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