Mechanism of Action of ECT in Schizophrenia: Genetic Study From China

Out on PubMed, from researchers in China, is this study:

Mechanism of electroconvulsive therapy in schizophrenia: a bioinformatics analysis study of RNA-seq data.

Wang T, Yu M, Gu X, Liang X, Wang P, Peng W, Liu D, Chen D, Huang C, Tan Y, Liu K, Xiang B.Psychiatr Genet. 2024 Apr 1;34(2):54-60. doi: 10.1097/YPG.0000000000000362. Epub 2024 Mar 1.PMID: 38441120

The abstract is copied below:

Objective: The molecular mechanism of electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) for schizophrenia remains unclear. The aim of this study was to uncover the underlying biological mechanisms of ECT in the treatment of schizophrenia using a transcriptional dataset.

Methods: The peripheral blood mRNA sequencing data of eight patients (before and after ECT) and eight healthy controls were analyzed by integrated co-expression network analysis and the differentially expressed genes were analyzed by cluster analysis. Gene set overlap analysis was performed using the hypergeometric distribution of phypfunction in R. Associations of these gene sets with psychiatric disorders were explored. Tissue-specific enrichment analysis, gene ontology enrichment analysis, and protein-protein interaction enrichment analysis were used for gene set organization localization and pathway analysis.

Results: We found the genes of the green-yellow module were significantly associated with the effect of ECT treatment and the common gene variants of schizophrenia ( P = 0.0061; family-wise error correction). The genes of the green-yellow module are mainly enriched in brain tissue and mainly involved in the pathways of neurotrophin, mitogen-activated protein kinase and long-term potentiation.

Conclusion: Genes associated with the efficacy of ECT were predominantly enriched in neurotrophin, mitogen-activated protein kinase and long-term potentiation signaling pathways.

The paper is here.
And from the text:








Here is a small (n=8) genetic study from China showing that gene network modules change (?normalize) in patients with schizophrenia with ECT. The methodological details will be understandable only to genetics experts; the rest of us will need to settle for some comprehension of the bigger picture.
Two take home points here: 1) the search for the mechanism of action of ECT is alive and well, 2) schizophrenia is the #1 indication for ECT in many Asian countries.


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