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Updated: Dec 22, 2025

Brain Morphology of Cannabis Users With or Without Psychosis: A Pilot MRI Study
Published on: August 18, 2020
A typical antipsychotic treatment induced gradually expanding white matter alterations in healthy individuals with
Xiaodong Lin1, Gongying Li2, Feng Ji2
1Department of Psychiatric-Neuroimaging-Genetics Laboratory, Wenzhou Seventh People's Hospital, Wenzhou, China.
Objective:
The aim of this study was to explore the effects of atypical antipsychotics (AaPs) on brain white matter (WM) tracts in healthy individuals with auditory verbal hallucinations (Hi-AVHs).
Methods:
We analyzed neuroimaging, AVH symptoms, and cognitive assessment data obtained from 39 Hi-AVHs who reported being distressed by persistent AVHs and volunteered to receive AaP treatment. We used tract-based spatial statistics (TBSS) and t tests to explore AaP pharmacotherapy effects on AVH symptoms and brain WM alterations in Hi-AVH subjects.
Results:
TBSS and t tests revealed WM alterations after AaP treatment, relative to pretreatment observations. Although AaPs alleviated AVH symptoms, WM alterations in these subjects expanded over 8 months of AaP treatment, encompassing most major WM tracts by the end of the observation period, including the corpus callosum, arcuate fasciculus, cortico-spinal tracts, anterior commissure, and posterior commissure.
Conclusions:
The worsening of AaP-associated WM alterations observed in this study suggest that AaPs may not be a good choice for the treatment of Hi-AVHs despite their ability to alleviate AVHs.
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