14 DAY TRIAL // Mount Sinai School of Medicine investigators finally managed to solve one of the most puzzling aspects of schizophrenia treatments, namely why drugs tend to be effective at first, only to lose their healing properties with chronic administration.
Antipsychotic drugs are the first choice for treating schizophrenia, on account of the fact that the condition produces paranoia and extreme audiovisual hallucinations. A paper published in the journal Nature Neuroscience shows that epigenetic factors are responsible for the development of resistance.
Scientists say that antipsychotics cause prolonged chemical changes in the brain, which keep the condition in check. Over time, an enzyme in the brain begins to compensate for these changes, therefore reducing the effectiveness of the treatments, PsychCentral reports.
“These results are groundbreaking because they show that drug resistance may be caused by the very medications prescribed to treat schizophrenia, when administered chronically,” lead study investigator, Javier Gonzalez-Maeso, PhD, explains.