A Longitudinal Comparison Between Depressed Patients Receiving Electroconvulsive Therapy and Healthy Controls on...

Area of Science:

• Neuroscience
• Psychiatry
• Cognitive Psychology

Background:

• Electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) is a treatment for severe depression.
• Neurocognitive effects of ECT require further investigation.
• Clinicaltrials.gov identifier: NCT04348825.

Purpose of the Study:

• To assess the short- and long-term impact of ECT on verbal, visual, and autobiographical memory.
• To compare memory functions in patients with severe depression undergoing ECT against healthy controls.
• To differentiate between memory effects of ECT and depression itself.

Main Methods:

• A pre-post intervention study design with 38 patients and 16 controls.
• Right unilateral ECT with brief-pulse, square-wave, constant current.
• Neurocognitive assessments (verbal, visual, autobiographical memory) administered pre-treatment, 19 days, and 6 months post-treatment.

Main Results:

• Patients consistently performed worse than controls on verbal and visual memory measures.
• No significant impairment in verbal or visual memory function was directly attributed to ECT within the patient group.
• Autobiographical memory consistency was significantly lower in patients (70.30%) compared to controls (82.03%) at 6 months post-treatment.

Conclusions:

• ECT does not appear to affect the acquisition of new general knowledge.
• Deficits in autobiographical memory observed 6 months post-ECT suggest both iatrogenic treatment effects and the impact of depression on retrograde memory.
• The potential benefits of ECT for symptom and functional recovery must be weighed against the risk of iatrogenic effects on memory.