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European Archives of Psychiatry and Clinical Neuroscience
Published in: European Archives of Psychiatry and Clinical Neuroscience 3/2016

01-04-2016 | Original Paper

Are morphological changes necessary to mediate the therapeutic effects of electroconvulsive therapy?

Authors: Thomas Nickl-Jockschat, Nicola Palomero Gallagher, Vinod Kumar, Felix Hoffstaedter, Elisabeth Brügmann, Ute Habel, Simon B. Eickhoff, Michael Grözinger

Published in: European Archives of Psychiatry and Clinical Neuroscience | Issue 3/2016

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Abstract

The neurotrophic hypothesis has become the favorite model to explain the antidepressant properties of electroconvulsive therapy (ECT). It is based on the assumption that a restoration of previously defective neural networks drives therapeutic effects. Recent data in rather young patients suggest that neurotrophic effects of ECT might be detectable by diffusion tensor imaging. We here aimed to investigate whether the therapeutic response to ECT necessarily goes along with mesoscopic effects in gray matter (GM) or white matter (WM) in our patients in advanced age. Patients (n = 21, 15 males and 7 females) suffering from major depressive disorder were treated with ECT. Before the start of treatment and after the completion of the index series, they underwent magnetic resonance imaging, including a diffusion-weighed sequence. We used voxel-based morphometry to assess GM changes and tract-based spatial statistics and an SPM-based whole-brain analysis to detect WM changes in the course of treatment. Patients significantly improved clinically during the course of ECT. This was, however, not accompanied by GM or WM changes. This result challenges the notion that mesoscopic brain structure changes are an obligatory prerequisite for the antidepressant effects of ECT.
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Metadata
Title
Are morphological changes necessary to mediate the therapeutic effects of electroconvulsive therapy?
Authors
Thomas Nickl-Jockschat
Nicola Palomero Gallagher
Vinod Kumar
Felix Hoffstaedter
Elisabeth Brügmann
Ute Habel
Simon B. Eickhoff
Michael Grözinger
Publication date
01-04-2016
Publisher
Springer Berlin Heidelberg
Published in
European Archives of Psychiatry and Clinical Neuroscience / Issue 3/2016
Print ISSN: 0940-1334
Electronic ISSN: 1433-8491
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1007/s00406-015-0631-z

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