Rediscovering the Effect of ECT on Bad Memories This suggests that ECT works by interfering with a memory as the rat is actively remembering it. Lewis’s team did not play the tone immediately before the ECT, the treatment had no effect on the rats. Interestingly, the researchers found that in order for the ECT treatment to successfully impair the fearful memory, it had to be administered immediately after the researchers reactivated the memory by playing the tone that the rats found frightening. This suggests that ECT impaired the fearful memory of being shocked. Surprisingly, they found that rats that were given ECT treatment licked their water bottle more when they heard the tone compared to control rats that were not given the treatment. To do this, they first reactivated the fearful memories in rats by playing the tone that the rats found frightening and then gave the rats ECT immediately afterwards. Lewis and his team then tried using ECT to erase the rats’ memories of being shocked. Then, when the researchers played the tone again, the rats froze in fear and licked their water bottle less due to their memory of being shocked upon hearing the tone.ĭr. The researchers first made rats associate a tone with a fearful memory by playing this tone as they electrically shocked the rats’ feet. Donald J Lewis showed that ECT might be able to specifically erase fear memories. A group of researchers at Rutgers University led by Dr. In retrospect, that might have been an early sign of the possible utility of ECT for treating PTSD.Īnother early indicator of ECT as a potential treatment for PTSD came from a study of rats in the 1960s. When people first administered ECT to patients in the 1930s to 1950s, they found that it caused memory impairments. However, nowadays, ECT actually is a safe, quick and effective procedure with few side effects and is used to achieve faster recovery in some patients with depression. Due to the fact that this treatment was given to patients without general anesthesia in its early days, ECT treatment has been stigmatized, particularly in the past several decades. This treatment restores the chemical balance of the brain and is effective at alleviating the symptoms of a variety of mental illnesses, including severe depression, mania, and psychosis. Given its utility in many areas of psychiatry, ECT has been studied for its potential effects in modifying painful memories.ĮCT is a medical procedure in which a brief, monitored seizure is generated in the patient’s brain by passing small electrical current through the brain while the patient is under general anesthesia. The central focus of PTSD treatment has always been dealing with patients’ painful memories. People who suffer from PTSD are haunted by their painful memories in a way that disturbs their daily functioning. A variety of situations can trigger PTSD symptoms: a war veteran can have flashbacks of fierce combat scenes, a terror attack victim can re-experience the horror of an explosion triggered by the sounds of firecrackers, and a victim of childhood abuse can have vivid nightmares well into adulthood. Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) affects individuals who have gone through extremely frightening, painful, or stressful events in their life. Dealing with Painful Memories:The focus of PTSD treatment What comes to mind when you hear the term electroconvulsive therapy (ECT)? A cruel torture method for disobedient psychiatric patients portrayed in films like One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest? Or a last-resort for treatment-resistant depression with less discomfort and fewer side-effects? New developments in using ECT to treat Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder might soon give us a new way to think about ECT: a tool to erase one’s painful memories, like the memory modification method in the film, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.
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