Treatments
Electroconvulsive Therapy
Also Known As ECT
Psychiatric Therapy
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Electroconvulsive therapy passes a controlled electric current through the brain to induce a brief seizure. Ugo Cerletti and his assistant Lucio Bini, neuro-psychiatrists at Sapienza University of Rome, developed it in 1938; Cerletti had been inducing seizures in animal experiments and, after observing pigs electrically stunned before slaughter, proposed electricity as a substitute for the chemical convulsive agents (camphor, then metrazol) that the Hungarian neuropsychiatrist Ladislas Meduna had introduced in 1934. ECT was originally intended for severe schizophrenia; it later proved most effective for affective disorders such as major depression instead. Cerletti and Bini were nominated for, but never awarded, a Nobel Prize, and competitive tensions between the two damaged their relationship once the device was commercialized internationally.
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Originally intended for schizophrenia; later proved most effective for affective disorders such as depression.
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