This study involved 58 healthy volunteers (34 men, 24 women; aged 24 65 years; mean age: 43.6±1.5 years) who were free from any medical condition or had not taken medication for at least 10 days prior to the experiments.
But Dr. Castellanos and his colleagues found that, as in children who had taken medication, the total brain volume of children who had never been medicated was significantly smaller than that of children in the control group.
Medical diagnoses were assessed by asking if respondents "have ever taken medication for, had surgery for, or been told by a doctor" that they have the condition of interest.
Ms Martin said she has undergone trauma counselling and has taken medication for depression.
He takes responsibility for what he did and has taken medication since his diagnosis, said his lawyer, Bill Nettles.
Having recently taken medication for both diabetes and hepatitis C, he said that an additional substance was unnecessary.
Dillon, a mother of two, has heard voices for more than 30 years and has never taken medication for them.
He has struggled with drinking, gained and lost 20 pounds and taken medication for anger and depression.
The condition had first been diagnosed when he was an undergraduate at Amherst College, in the early eighties; ever since, he had taken medication to manage its symptoms.
But the new work, reported today in The Journal of the American Medical Association, found the difference was present even among children who had never taken medication.
Spiesel says that "if a child does something harmful, the parents are in legal jeopardy whether or not the child has taken medication".
