Using Medical Records to Investigate the Genetics of Treatment-Resistant Depression Across Health Care Systems: ECT as a Proxy for TRD

On PubMed, from a few months ago, in Am J Psych, is this editorial:


Using Medical Records to Investigate the Genetics of Treatment-Resistant Depression Across Health Care Systems.
Polimanti R.Am J Psychiatry. 2024 Jul 1;181(7):569-571. doi: 10.1176/appi.ajp.20240377.

PMID: 38946279 


The editorial is here.

And here:


This editorial accompanied the Kang study that I I blogged about in May. It is dense and complicated, mainly about the methodology of psychiatric genetic studies. For us, the importance is that it recognizes ECT use as a way to define a subpopulation of depressed patients with a more "biological" and heritable illness. I do wish they had used a "severity" marker, rather than the fraught concept of TRD, but there is much overlap.
The editorial also notes the problem of underuse of ECT.

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