Science Buddies: "Ask an Expert"

Hello,

I'm participating in a regional science fair, and decided to research the effects of general electroconvulsive therapy on the hippocampus region of the brain, and whether or not it induces amnesia(both retrograde and anterograde). I'm experiencing difficulty finding data on how patients score on anterograde and retrograde memory assessments after undergoing ECT, however, and was hoping an expert could direct/inform me as to where I could find the general trend of post-ECT patient memory scores.


Thank you,
biochemistry123

Hi,

You might be interested in the following articles:

The long term impact of treatment with electric convulsive therapy on discrete memory systems in patients with bipolar disorder by Macqueen et al. (2007)
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1911194/

Research Findings on Memory and Cognitive Impairment by U.S. FDA (2011)
http://psychcentral.com/lib/research-fi ... ct/0007320

Effects of eletroconvulsive therapy and propofol on spatial memory and glutamatergic system in hippocampus of depressed rats by Dong et al. (2010)
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20514696

The hippocampus in patients treated with electroconvulsive therapy: a proton magnetic resonance spectroscopic imaging study by Ende et al. (2000)
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11015811

I hope that these studies help.