Electroconvulsive therapy-induced brain plasticity determines therapeutic outcome in mood disorders

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Item Type:	Article
Title:	Electroconvulsive therapy-induced brain plasticity determines therapeutic outcome in mood disorders
Creators Name:	Dukart, J., Regen, F., Kherif, F., Colla, M., Bajbouj, M., Heuser, I., Frackowiak, R.S. and Draganski, B.
Abstract:	There remains much scientific, clinical, and ethical controversy concerning the use of electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) for psychiatric disorders stemming from a lack of information and knowledge about how such treatment might work, given its nonspecific and spatially unfocused nature. The mode of action of ECT has even been ascribed to a "barbaric" form of placebo effect. Here we show differential, highly specific, spatially distributed effects of ECT on regional brain structure in two populations: patients with unipolar or bipolar disorder. Unipolar and bipolar disorders respond differentially to ECT and the associated local brain-volume changes, which occur in areas previously associated with these diseases, correlate with symptom severity and the therapeutic effect. Our unique evidence shows that electrophysical therapeutic effects, although applied generally, take on regional significance through interactions with brain pathophysiology.
Keywords:	Magnetic Resonance Imaging, Voxel-Based Morphometry, Unipolar Depression, Hippocampus
Source:	Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America
ISSN:	0027-8424
Publisher:	National Academy of Sciences
Volume:	111
Number:	3
Page Range:	1156-1161
Date:	21 January 2014
Official Publication:	https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1321399111
PubMed:	View item in PubMed

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