by Xiaomeng Han
figures by Abigail Burrus
What comes to mind when you hear the term electroconvulsive therapy (ECT)? A cruel torture method for disobedient psychiatric patients portrayed in films like One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest? Or a last-resort for treatment-resistant depression with less discomfort and fewer side-effects? New developments in using ECT to treat Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder might soon give us a new way to think about ECT: a tool to erase one’s painful memories, like the memory modification method in the film, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.
Dealing with Painful Memories:The focus of PTSD treatment
Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) affects individuals who have gone through extremely frightening, painful, or stressful events in their life. A variety of situations can trigger PTSD symptoms: a war veteran can have flashbacks of fierce combat scenes, a terror attack victim can re-experience the horror of an explosion triggered by the sounds of firecrackers, and a victim of childhood abuse can have vivid nightmares well into adulthood. People who suffer from PTSD are haunted by their painful memories in a way that disturbs their daily functioning. The central focus of PTSD treatment has always been dealing with patients’ painful memories. Given its utility in many areas of psychiatry, ECT has been studied for its potential effects in modifying painful memories.
ECT is a medical procedure in which a brief, monitored seizure is generated in the patient’s brain by passing small electrical current through the brain while the patient is under general anesthesia. This treatment restores the chemical balance of the brain and is effective at alleviating the symptoms of a variety of mental illnesses, including severe depression, mania, and psychosis. Due to the fact that this treatment was given to patients without general anesthesia in its early days, ECT treatment has been stigmatized, particularly in the past several decades. However, nowadays, ECT actually is a safe, quick and effective procedure with few side effects and is used to achieve faster recovery in some patients with depression.
An Almost Forgotten ECT Study in Rats
When people first administered ECT to patients in the 1930s to 1950s, they found that it caused memory impairments. In retrospect, that might have been an early sign of the possible utility of ECT for treating PTSD.
Another early indicator of ECT as a potential treatment for PTSD came from a study of rats in the 1960s. A group of researchers at Rutgers University led by Dr. Donald J Lewis showed that ECT might be able to specifically erase fear memories. The researchers first made rats associate a tone with a fearful memory by playing this tone as they electrically shocked the rats’ feet. Then, when the researchers played the tone again, the rats froze in fear and licked their water bottle less due to their memory of being shocked upon hearing the tone.
Dr. Lewis and his team then tried using ECT to erase the rats’ memories of being shocked. To do this, they first reactivated the fearful memories in rats by playing the tone that the rats found frightening and then gave the rats ECT immediately afterwards. Surprisingly, they found that rats that were given ECT treatment licked their water bottle more when they heard the tone compared to control rats that were not given the treatment. This suggests that ECT impaired the fearful memory of being shocked.
Interestingly, the researchers found that in order for the ECT treatment to successfully impair the fearful memory, it had to be administered immediately after the researchers reactivated the memory by playing the tone that the rats found frightening. If Dr. Lewis’s team did not play the tone immediately before the ECT, the treatment had no effect on the rats. This suggests that ECT works by interfering with a memory as the rat is actively remembering it.
Rediscovering the Effect of ECT on Bad Memories
In 2014, nearly 50 years after the initial rat study, another group of researchers from Europe tested if ECT could help erase traumatic memories in patients with depression who were already undergoing ECT treatment. In their study, patients heard two traumatic stories involving violence or emotional pain through slide shows and narrative storytelling. One week later, only one story was “reactivated,” meaning the patients heard the traumatic story again. Immediately after the story was reactivated, patients received ECT treatment. The researchers then tested the patients’ memories of these two stories through multiple choices tests. As with the rats, the patients’ memories of the story that was “reactivated” immediately before ECT treatment were impaired. Impressively, they remembered the other story well, suggesting that ECT can be used to erase specific traumatic memories.
Possible Treatment Regimen for Erasing Painful Memories
Another 2014 study by group of psychiatrists from Germany showed that an ECT treatment regimen could be effective in ameliorating a PTSD patient’s symptoms. In this study, a single patient suffering from PTSD from a serious car accident and several episodes of sexual abuse underwent eight sessions of ECT. Before each ECT treatment, he was asked to describe one of his traumatic memories (the car accident), which is equivalent to “reactivating” that specific memory like playing the tone for those rats or re-hearing one of the traumatic stories by those depression patients. Right after his description, he was anesthetized and administered an ECT treatment. As the treatment progressed, the patient began to have fewer flashbacks and reduced anxiety and depression, indicating that his PTSD was improving. Incredibly, by the end of the treatment course, the patient could barely remember the car accident.
Moving into Clinical Trials? Explore Underlying Mechanisms? Or Be Cautious of Ethical Problems?
Based on these past studies, the use of ECT treatment to free PTSD patients from their devastating and painful memories seems promising. With inventions such as ultrabrief pulse width (a new method with minimal discomfort and side-effects), nowadays, ECT treatment is no longer as frightening as it used to be. Considering that knowledge and acceptance of ECT are growing in the general population, we can imagine that in the near future, there will be an increasing number of clinical trials with attempts to use ECT to treat people with PTSD. ECT is still not perfect. Scientists are still trying to improve and perfect memory reactivation techniques, treatment frequency, and length. However, as it stands, ECT is an incredibly promising choice for psychological treatment.
Moreover, these ECT studies may help neuroscientists understand how memories are formed in the brain. Based on several significant research papers also published around 2014, scientists now know that memories can be stored in certain neural cells or their connections. However, what happens to these cells and their connections during memory reactivation and ECT is still mysterious. One can only imagine how our memories are created, retrieved, and recreated in our mysterious brain.
Xiaomeng Han is a second year graduate student in the Harvard PhD Program in Neuroscience. She uses electron microscopy to study neuronal connectivity.
For more information:
- To grasp the basics of electroconvulsive therapy (ECT), check out this Scientific American article.
- For a more in-depth history of ECT, read this Scientific American article.
- The 1960s research on rats in the Science magazine can be found here. (http://science.sciencemag.org/content/160/3827/554.long)
- This National Institute of Mental Health page explores the definition, causes, symptoms and treatments of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).
- For more on using ECT to erase painful memories in humans, check out this TIME article.
I had many ect’s in early years of 2000. As of 6 years ago, and not with the help of ect’s, I am now depression and drug free. I lost my son a year ago. Ect’s wiped out every memory I had before these last six years except occasional snapshots of events, but nothing of my childhood or that of my kids. I have no memories of my son to look back on. It’s so hard to even bring up a feeling about his loss because I have no memories to connect him with. And I feel absolutely no connection to those who are still with me. Ect’s took my life and my feelings and thrust them into a place I can’t retrieve them from. My family often talks about things in the past and I am just an outsider, starting my life as if I have just began to live it. The only benefit… When difficult things happen to me now I don’t have to worry about my past memories affecting how I will respond because there aren’t any.
So you mean a clean slate?
Deborah Schwarpkoff and all,
My name is Judy and I spoke with Deborah years ago about my own ECT experience forced. I would like to make comment that a Rosary can be helpful as too, a faithful church community of believers. Mine happens to be Roman Catholic and I have found comfort
in their supportive kindness. I would like to also that praying the Rosary even a decade
a day with a Blessed Rosary – (yes, it has to be Blessed by an ordained Priest) makes so
much difference. I take walks and the whole pain will never go away, but feels like Jesus and the Blessed Virgin Mary are walking kind of with you. Also, does anyone find ongoing cursing and swearing a real ongoing thing at all? Boy I sure do and it’s awful!
Judy , I agree completely , Sometimes I like to imagine its mother Mary as the receptionist and that Jesus himself administered my ECT therapy,I find that most comforting. If you squint you’ll be amazed how many things can form of biblical significance, it has improved my driving quite profoundly.
Beep! Beep! Out of my way!
Hey pls help me out. I got a worse haircut 2 months ago and due to this i started to stare other’s hair sides to compare and continuosly try to look people’s hair. While i have full hair, no hairline problem and i have complete good and full of density hair. But i look to others why. Bcoz of it i decided to commit suicide many times, if i do not get solution then i will no longer be alive
This sounds like ocd. Please find an ocd specialist. They’ll talk with you about your compulsions and help you through erp (exposure and response prevention). If you need to do this remotely you can check out https://www.treatmyocd.com/. They do meetings through video chat.
In the article, you state:
“This treatment restores the chemical balance of the brain.”
What scientific evidence is there for this statement? Did researchers find people with a measurable “chemical imbalance” in their brains, then measure improved “chemical balance” after ECT treatment? It sound like you are relying on circular reasoning that anyone with depressive symptoms must have a chemical imbalance, and if their symptoms have improved then the imbalance must have been corrected.
As a chemist, the fact that a 1990s marketing campaign for SSRI medications now seems to be accepted by some many doctors as the primary underlying cause of all depression is disturbing to me. Just because changing the levels of available neurotransmitters in the synaptic gap can have an effect on depressive symptoms it does not even REMOTELY follow that the neurotransmitter levels must be the cause of the symptoms.
Have neurologists developed tools for measuring those levels in the brain of a living human? How do you define balanced levels vs imbalanced levels?
You shouldn’t be calling people idiots…as you said..your experience was different. So was theirs. Im sorry all of that has happened to you, it sounds worse than a nightmare.
For some people it worked. They aren’t idiots.
Healing from PTSD is a long process that cannot be achieved through medications alone. There are several things that veterans and other patients of PTSD can and should do to heal themselves, and creative writing is one of the most effective of them.
I want to warn everyone that ECT DESTROYED MY LIFE AND IT CAN DESTROY YOURS AS WELL….People do not be fooled by these idiots claiming ECT saved their life because I’ll tell you right now, that is NOT the case with everyone. I know this first hand as I received 20 ECT treatments from 2018 into 2019. After just the 2nd treatment I was absolutely shocked because I realized a horrible reality…I could not remember anything of my past. I had just turned 32 at the time so 31 years of memories gone in an instant. Just so you can understand how profound this was. I went to college 6 years (I switched my major a few times). I could not remember going to college at all. I was absolutely terrified but I was coaxed into 18 more treatments. Every single day I was extremely disoriented. Sometimes I woke up in the morning and did not even recognize my own bedroom! I even lost my job because of the cognitive side effects this horrible treatment has and have not been able to work since because the side effects still linger!!! I discussed my memory loss with the doctor who administered my treatments soon after I stopped. She brushed me off saying “that does not happen. You only lose memories of events leading up to the treatment-like a few weeks prior.” She basically told me I was lying it hurt me to the core. I live every single day of my life now with regret. I lost almost all of my friends because of my memory loss. I remember no birthdays, no vacations, no schooling, no anything. The biggest question you’re probably asking yourself…well did it help ease my depression??!! My answer is a resounding NO. It intensified my depression 10 fold because my sense of identity was wiped out in an instant. Life as I knew it would never be the same again and now it has been well over a year since my last treatment and that still remains true. People do not opt for this treatment. Electrocuting your brain is not worth it no matter what. Get therapy. You have a much better chance of saving your life that way then but ECT. This treatment need to be banned. It is a barbaric treatment no human needs to suffer. If you can relate to me, fight for justice. I will continue to fight and never give up!
Not all people lose all their memories just some that means there’s a reason when that happens maybe because of how your doctor used it on you or because of your brain didn’t take it and im sorry for your loss
I’ve not yet undergone the treatment but I intend to. Before I go any further, I want to say sorry for your loss and pain. Well, I think the reason why the treatment didn’t work on you and even your depression became worse is that, you kept worrying about your memory loss and cognitive ability and this led to your new depression. Well, I guess there’s a price to pay for any big solution. The prices are huge, but if you focus on what it was intended for, you would be grateful and okay.
You may want to contact the Baum Hedlund law firm in CA doing a national suit around ect devices. See YouTube videos under ds electroshock.
Anyone considering this treatment like I am, (until reading stories of long standing short term memory loss) try psychedelics first. They don’t harm your brain or destroy your memories. They give you a reset and let you process the memories instead.
What’s psychedelic? Please need more info on it if it can stop me from ECT. Please email me.
Agree! See site ectjustice and Life After ECT.
wow so many people like myself if i could erase maybe the last four years or so that would be a blessing….and some othr memories as well
I’m also wowed that there similar people like me here. How I wish I could erase all those years of painful memories from my mind. They’ve made me paranoid. I would give up everything just to have this. I want to be happy for once. I want to have stability. I will up all my riches just to be able to experience this. Don’t mind being poor if it means my mind can be at rest and have this freedom and stability.
See site ectjustice and site Life After ECT.
My name is stacie holland I need to earse some of my memory to keep my maggier I’m live in fort smith ar.
See ectjustice site and Life After ECT.