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The Mode of Action of Electro-Convulsive Therapy

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  08 February 2018

W. Ross Ashby
W. Ross Ashby*
Affiliation:
Department of Research, Barnwood House, Gloucester, and The Burden Neurological Institute, Bristol
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Extract

How electro-convulsive therapy (E.C.T.) acts, what is the chain of cause and effect from the electrical application to the clinical improvement, are questions whose answers are as uncertain as ever, in spite of the importance of such knowledge to psychiatry and in spite of the researches of nearly twenty years. The experiments reported in this paper are an attempt to elucidate the links of one possible chain. What are the possibilities? I shall review them briefly, restricting the review to the physiological and biochemical aspects and omitting any reference to the psychological or psycho-analytical.

Type
Part I.—Original Articles
Information
Journal of Mental Science , Volume 99 , Issue 415 , April 1953 , pp. 202 - 215
Copyright
Copyright © Royal College of Psychiatrists, 1953 

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