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Updated: Oct 17, 2026
Brain Imaging Investigation of the Neural Correlates of Emotional Autobiographical Recollection
Published on: August 26, 2011
Reliable Change in Autobiographical Memory After Electroconvulsive Therapy: Depressed-Control Reference Data and
Ana Jelovac1, Sarah Thompson1, Kevin McDonnell1
1Department of Psychiatry, School of Medicine, Trinity College Dublin, St Patrick's University Hospital, Dublin, Ireland.
Background:
The Columbia University Autobiographical Memory Interview-Short Form (AMI-SF) is commonly used in electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) research, but reference data are lacking for determining whether decline observed after ECT exceeds expected retest change.
Methods:
Individual participant data from 99 depressed inpatients with no lifetime ECT exposure and 218 ECT recipients treated with right unilateral (RUL) or bitemporal (BT) ECT were analysed. Reliable decline was defined relative to depressed controls assessed over equivalent intervals using reliable change indices and standardised regression-based methods.
Results:
In depressed controls, the mean percentage of baseline autobiographical information reproduced was 76.9% at end-of-treatment, 75.1% at 3 months, 68.4% at 6 months, and 65.5% at 12 months. At end-of-treatment, approximately three in ten RUL patients and one in two BT patients showed reliable decline. At 12 months, corresponding proportions were one in ten after RUL and three in ten after BT ECT. On average, lower proportions at later follow-ups did not indicate recovery of memories not recalled at end-of-treatment; mean scores in ECT groups remained broadly unchanged during long-term follow-up while controls declined further.
Conclusions:
Autobiographical memory decline exceeding that expected in depressed controls was common acutely after ECT and remained substantially more frequent after BT than RUL ECT at one year follow-up. After RUL ECT, nine in ten patients did not meet reliable decline criteria at one-year follow-up. These psychometric thresholds describe statistically unusual change, not necessarily clinically meaningful retrograde amnesia.
