Advances in Neuroimaging Research of Electroconvulsive Therapy in Depression

Abstract

The goal of electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) is to relieve disease symptoms by passing a small amount of electric current through the patient's head, inducing convulsions throughout the body.  Although its treatment mechanism is yet unknown, electroconvulsive therapy can significantly relieve the clinical symptoms of patients with serious depression. This review summarizes the recent progress in neuroimaging research on ECT for major depression. Due to the rapid advancement of neuroimaging technology, it is now necessary to investigate the neurobiological mechanisms underlying major depression from the perspectives of brain structure, function, and metabolism. Research has shown that electroconvulsive therapy can, to a certain extent, improve patients' brain function, metabolism, and even brain structure.  Currently, an increasing number of neuroimaging studies adopt various neuroimaging techniques including functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), positron emission tomography (PET), magnetic resonance spectroscopy (MRS), structural magnetic resonance imaging (sMRI) and diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) to reveal the neural effects of ECT. Based on the neuroimaging studies, this review suggests that the neurobiological mechanism of ECT may be to modulate the functional activity and connectivity or neural structural plasticity in specific brain regions to the normal level, to achieve the therapeutic effect.