Clinical Neuroscience of ECT (CNECT)

 I will be on hiatus for the rest of the month of May. I hope to see many of you at the ISEN ECT course and Annual Meeting in Los Angeles. I encourage you to keep checking PubMed for new ECT citations and to use OpenEvidence to help answer your most pressing ECT questions. CK

 Out on PubMed, from authors in Texas and Illinois, is this review: Electroconvulsive therapy for super refractory status epilepticus: A scoping review. Dowd DK, Nunes D, Shah PD, Pardo AC. Epilepsia. 2025 May 2. doi: 10.1111/epi.18432. Online ahead of print. PMID:  40317487   Review. The abstract is copied below: Objective: Status epilepticus (SE) is a neurologic emergency. Although evidence-based treatments exist for SE, treatment of refractory status epilepticus (RSE) and super refractory status epilepticus (SRSE) lacks evidence. Electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) is safe and efficacious when used to treat psychiatric disorders. Seizure control attributed to ECT in the setting of SRSE has been reported in case reports and case series. The objective of this scoping review was to understand the current knowledge regarding the safety and efficacy of ECT in aborting SRSE in the adult and pediatric populations. Methods: This scoping review was designed based on guidelines from...

 Out on Pubmed, form authors in the USA, is this review: Psychosis associated with dementia: evaluation and management. Tampi RR, Joshi P, Jeste DV. Schizophr Res. 2025 May 3;281:82-90. doi: 10.1016/j.schres.2025.04.022. Online ahead of print. PMID:  40319614   Review The abstract is copied below: Dementia is one of the most common neurodegenerative disorders in the world, and 34-63 % of individuals with dementia have psychotic symptoms. Neurobiological correlates of dementia with psychosis include significantly increased densities of senile plaques and neurofibrillary tangles and higher D3 receptor density. Limitations of proposed diagnostic criteria include a lack of specificity for psychotic symptoms in individuals with dementia, a lack of consistent differentiation between symptoms, late recognition, and not accounting for comorbid depression or agitation that may be the primary symptom, which makes diagnosis challenging. This review aims to provide clinicians, resear...

 Out on PubMed, from American authors are these two LTEs: Electroconvulsive Therapy Device Litigation. Swartz C. Psychiatr Serv. 2025 May 1;76(5):533-534. doi: 10.1176/appi.ps.20250061. PMID:  40308100   =========================================================================== Reply to Swartz. Appelbaum PS. Psychiatr Serv. 2025 May 1;76(5):534. doi: 10.1176/appi.ps.20250090. PMID:  40308097 Here is a letter from Conrad Swartz and a reply from Paul Applebaum about ongoing/pending ECT device manufacturer litigation, perpetrated by the Church of Scientology. A pity that Dr. Applebaum seems to take a slightly antagonistic obsessional/legalistic view, missing the overarching point of the need to protect ECT from scurrilous attacks.

Out on PubMed, from authors in Cameroon and Pennsylvania, in JECT, is this paper: Introduction of Electroconvulsive Therapy in Cameroon. Toguem MG, Ebuenyi ID. J ECT. 2025 May 1. doi: 10.1097/YCT.0000000000001156. Online ahead of print. PMID:  40310084 The abstract is copied below: Electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) is an essential component of clinical practice in psychiatry. Unfortunately, there remain many obstacles to its routine adoption. In Africa, the use of ECT remains limited, and to our knowledge, there is no documented use of ECT in Francophone Sub-Saharan African countries. This article shares our experience in establishing and providing ECT services at a center in Cameroon, which, to the best of our knowledge, is the only known ECT unit in Francophone Sub-Saharan African countries. We emphasize the need for governments and healthcare stakeholders to promote efforts to increase access to ECT in resource-limited settings. Keywords: Cameroon; electroconvulsive therapy; low-r...

Out on PubMed, from authors in Pennsylvania and Michigan, is this article: Is the Treatment Worse than the Disease?: Key Stakeholders' Views about the Use of Psychiatric Electroceutical Interventions for Treatment-Resistant Depression. Cabrera LY, Bluhm R, McCright AM, Achtyes ED. Neuroethics. 2025;18(1):1. doi: 10.1007/s12152-024-09573-2. Epub 2024 Oct 16. PMID:  40313710 The abstract is copied below: Psychiatric electroceutical interventions (PEIs) use electrical or magnetic stimulation to treat psychiatric conditions. For depression therapy, PEIs include both approved treatment modalities, such as electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) and repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS), and experimental neurotechnologies, such as deep brain stimulation (DBS) and adaptive brain implants (ABIs). We present results from a survey-based experiment in which members of four relevant stakeholder groups (psychiatrists, patients with depression, caregivers of adults with depression, and th...

  I am leaving this post up for the next few days, so that it gets as many views as possible. Out on PubMed, from authors Down Under, is this paper: Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Psychiatrists professional practice guidelines for the use of ketamine in psychiatric practice. Hussain S, Gale C, Sarma S, Smith J, Bayes A, Loo C. Aust N Z J Psychiatry. 2025 Apr 28:48674251333577. doi: 10.1177/00048674251333577. Online ahead of print. PMID:  40290038 The abstract is copied below: Professional practice guidelines for the use of ketamine in psychiatric practice have been developed by the Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Psychiatrists to provide guidance on the use of ketamine in clinical practice in Australia and Aotearoa New Zealand, based on scientific evidence and supplemented by expert clinical consensus. Articles and information were sourced from existing guidelines and published literature. The findings were then formulated into consensus-based recommen...