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Sam
Electroconvulsive therapy may be effective in patients with severe depression, according to the researchers from the University of Aberdeen and Dundee University who publish their results, obtained in nine patients, in the March 19 edition of reports of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS).
During ECT, patients are anesthetized and the brain receives an electric current. The study analyzed the brains of nine patients with severe depression, before and after their sessions of ECT and found that after treatment, the depressed patients are attenuated and that the connections in the brain areas related to both depression and cognitive function are reduced. Previous studies have indeed associated depression and increased connections in certain brain areas.
ECT is already used - in recent decades to treat severe cases of depression, in specific circumstances may have some benefits but also side effects such as memory impairment. Here, especially the scientists wanted to understand the process that leads to the effects in order to reproduce it but without the side effects. The researchers studied brain scans of nine patients in check by medication but successfully treated with electroshock, focusing on areas where connections had changed since the electroshock. Patients received two sessions per week of ECT until recovery of severe depression, or an average of 8.3 sessions.
The researchers found a significant improvement of symptoms and a decrease of connections in the left dorso lateral prefrontal cortex, an area associated with depression and cognitive functioning. They suggest that depression may be related to too high a level of connectivity in some areas of the brain and that detection of this Hyper connectivity could be used as a method of screening for mood disorders and as a target for future therapies.
Source: PNAS, March 19, 2012
Electroconvulsive therapy reduces frontal cortical connectivity in severe depressive disorder (Visuels NHS)
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