Shock Therapy’s Effect on Depression Discovered, Researchers Say [View all]

[Julian Englis]

Source: Bloomberg

After using electroconvulsive therapy for more than 70 years to treat severe depression, doctors say they now have discovered how it works.

Shock therapy, in use since 1937, appears to tamp down an overactive connection between two parts of the brain involved in emotional processing, thinking and concentration, according to a study released today by the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

The procedure mimics a seizure, sending a brief electric current to the brain. ECT has the strongest supporting data among treatments for patients whose depression doesn’t respond to medication, according to the American Psychiatric Association. About 10 to 20 percent of depressed patients receive shock therapy, said Paul Holtzheimer, an associate professor of psychiatry and surgery at Dartmouth Medical School.

“This gives us a much more powerful view of the brain,” Holtzheimer, who wasn’t involved in the study, said today in a telephone interview. “If this study holds up, it tells us this is a network problem.”

In the study, nine patients scheduled to undergo shock therapy had their brains scanned using functional MRI before and after treatment. This type of imaging detects blood flow to specific areas of the brain. Then the researchers analyzed the brain’s connectivity using a new mathematical model.

Read more: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-03-19/shock-therapy-s-effect-on-depression-discovered-researchers-say.html

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ECT is actually very safe compared to medications. The problem is with the side effects. In, particular some people memory loss. This new information may help pave the way to better, safer treatment of depression, where the treatment is more carefully targeted to parts of the brain that most involved in causing the depression.

Here is a link to the abstract of the original article in the Proceeding of the National Academy of Science:
http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2012/03/12/1117206109.abstract?sid=293419e9-94ec-44d4-be58-b49a2740a56d