Scientists from UC San Diego may have solved the century-old mystery of why this controversial treatment works. Electroconvulsive therapy (ECT), formerly known as electroshock therapy, involves triggering a short seizure in the brain using controlled electrical currents. ECT is notably effective in

In these two new studies a new hypothesis for explaining the effectiveness of ECT as a treatment for depression symptoms proposes that ECT alleviates symptoms by increasing aperiodic activity, a type of electrical activity in the brain that doesn’t follow a consistent pattern and is generally considered to be the brain’s background noise.

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41398-023-02631-y

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41398-023-02634-9