Absence of nimodipine premedication effect on memory after electroconvulsive therapy

While highly efficacious for affective disorders, electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) is sometimes accompanied by troublesome although temporary cognitive dysfunction. We speculated that the efficacy of ECT can be separated from its cognitive dysfunction by administration of nimodipine, a calcium channel blocker that crosses the blood-brain barrier and has prevented electroshock-induced amnesia in animal studies. However, in our single-blind repeated-measures trial on 8 patients, nimodipine 30-60 mg orally 2 h prior to ECT was indistinguishable from placebo in effects on verbal learning and retrograde and anterograde memory during the 2 h after ECT.