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Antidepressant effects of right versus left unilateral ECT and the lateralization theory of ECT action
R Abrams1, C M Swartz, C Vedak
1Department of Psychiatry, University of Health Sciences/Chicago Medical School, IL 60064.
The American Journal of Psychiatry
|September 1, 1989
Abstract:
In a random-assignment, double-blind, controlled comparison of right versus left unilateral ECT in 30 melancholic men, the two methods were not significantly different in overall antidepressant potency, although there was a significantly faster rate of improvement with left unilateral ECT. These results imply that the antidepressant effects of ECT cannot be attributed primarily to right hemisphere mechanisms, as others have postulated.