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Abstract: 

When most people hear about electroconvulsive therapy, or ECT, it typically conjures terrifying images of cruel, outdated and pseudo-medical procedures. Formerly known as electroshock therapy, this perception of ECT as dangerous and ineffective has been reinforced in pop culture for decades. Despite this stigma, ECT is a highly effective treatment for depression—up to 80% of patients experience at least a 50% reduction in symptom severity. Contributing to the stigma around ECT, psychiatrists still don’t know exactly how it heals a depressed person’s brain. ECT involves using highly controlled doses of electricity to induce a brief seizure under anesthesia. Often, the best description you’ll hear from a physician on why that brief seizure can alleviate depression symptoms is that ECT “resets” the brain—an answer that can be fuzzy and unsettling to some. The author and her colleagues in the lab of Bradley Voytek at UC San Diego discovered that ECT might work by resetting the brain’s electrical background noise.

Keywords: Electroconvulsive Therapy; Depression; Aperiodic Activity and ECT

Affiliations:  1: UC San Diego.