Thought provoking post, Bryn, and one on which I was perhaps already biased :) as someone who used to undergo ECT without a choice( read: I have epilepsy) I could never understand the appeal. The memory loss is real. When I watched beautiful mind in high school, my body had a very visceral reaction to someone forcing ECT on the main character for schizophrenia when others don’t have a choice but to convulse. It made no sense to me why you would simulate what my brain experienced on the regular. I later learned my great grandmother underwent it for alcoholism and depression. Having gone through college and studied neuroscience and no having some perspective having been seizure free from sometime, I can also appreciate the things we do to make life livable and the fascinating ways the brain works. Although, from a purely scientific standpoint, I’m still not sold on the viability of ECT as a long term treatment. 😊
Oh, gosh, no! When I was 18 I might have found the topic a bit triggering but now it’s just something I think I have a really interesting perspective on. And it’s not talked about a lot and I just think it’s honestly fascinating how humans can engineer what one person is born with to be therapy for another. It’s a testament to human ingenuity and how different every brain is- which is one reason I love neuroscience.
I hope more research about why it works *does* come out because that’s where I kind of get lost. I can understand why it would act as a short term reset but long term results ? I’d love to know
Yeah that’s a great analogy! And I can understand why some people get that short term boost. That many neurons firing at once is like someone wiped your hard drive for 45 minutes. But I would love to see more research on how it works to unseat mental illnesses that are often so treatment resistant and deeply wired in the brain. What we know is promising ; what we could know with more research is exciting 🤩
Gosh, Bryn - I was partway through this post before I'd spotted what it was about! 🤣
Two words about my own experience of ECT:
1. Brutal.
2. Effective.
My own treatments as a psych inpatient would be early on a Thursday morning - on the same day, and around an hour before, my weekly meetings with my doctor and the numerous members of his team. I would still be so out of it that I would have to be reintroduced to them EVERY SINGLE TIME.
I guess it worked, but oh gosh, I absolutely hated it!
Thought provoking post, Bryn, and one on which I was perhaps already biased :) as someone who used to undergo ECT without a choice( read: I have epilepsy) I could never understand the appeal. The memory loss is real. When I watched beautiful mind in high school, my body had a very visceral reaction to someone forcing ECT on the main character for schizophrenia when others don’t have a choice but to convulse. It made no sense to me why you would simulate what my brain experienced on the regular. I later learned my great grandmother underwent it for alcoholism and depression. Having gone through college and studied neuroscience and no having some perspective having been seizure free from sometime, I can also appreciate the things we do to make life livable and the fascinating ways the brain works. Although, from a purely scientific standpoint, I’m still not sold on the viability of ECT as a long term treatment. 😊
Oh, gosh, no! When I was 18 I might have found the topic a bit triggering but now it’s just something I think I have a really interesting perspective on. And it’s not talked about a lot and I just think it’s honestly fascinating how humans can engineer what one person is born with to be therapy for another. It’s a testament to human ingenuity and how different every brain is- which is one reason I love neuroscience.
I hope more research about why it works *does* come out because that’s where I kind of get lost. I can understand why it would act as a short term reset but long term results ? I’d love to know
Yeah that’s a great analogy! And I can understand why some people get that short term boost. That many neurons firing at once is like someone wiped your hard drive for 45 minutes. But I would love to see more research on how it works to unseat mental illnesses that are often so treatment resistant and deeply wired in the brain. What we know is promising ; what we could know with more research is exciting 🤩
Still doing searches on the utility of ECT over here. Sometimes I forget the tension about the things I read every day. Thanks for this post!
Gosh, Bryn - I was partway through this post before I'd spotted what it was about! 🤣
Two words about my own experience of ECT:
1. Brutal.
2. Effective.
My own treatments as a psych inpatient would be early on a Thursday morning - on the same day, and around an hour before, my weekly meetings with my doctor and the numerous members of his team. I would still be so out of it that I would have to be reintroduced to them EVERY SINGLE TIME.
I guess it worked, but oh gosh, I absolutely hated it!