Electroconvulsive Therapy For Senile Depression Patients: A Resting State Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging Study

Effect Of Slectroconvulsive Therapy on Low Frequency Amplitude and Related Brain Network Changes in Senile Depression PatientsObjective senile depression is a common psychological disease of the elderly,which does great harm to the physical and mental health of the elderly.Its clinical manifestations are different from that of adult depression,and the treatment difficulty is significantly increased.The curative effect of electroconvulsive therapy(ECT)is relatively accurate,but the treatment mechanism is not clear.Functional magnetic resonance technology has been used to study the treatment mechanism of ECT for depression,but very few studies have been conducted on senile depression.Therefore,relevant research and exploration will be of great significance to further clarify the treatment mechanism.To investigate the effect of electroconvulsive therapy on brain function in senile depression patients.Methods Twelve patients with depression(age?60 years old)who completed ICD-10 diagnostic criteria completed electroconvulsive therapy(ECT)(Treatment frequency ?12 times),and received brain functional magnetic resonance before and after treatment.Scan,calculate and analyze the difference of brain low frequency amplitude index before and after treatment,and extract the difference brain area as a seed point to calculate the functional connection with the whole brain,and then compare the changes of full-function connection before and after treatment.Results Compared with ECT,the ALFF value after ECT in patients had a significant increase in the left inferior temporal gyrus and the medial temporal sacral recurrence(GRF correction,voxol p<0.005,cluster p<0.05).Subsequently,the two brain regions were extracted as seed points for whole brain functional connectivity analysis.It was found that after the ECT,the functional connections of the cingulate gyrus,thalamus and globus pallidus were significantly enhanced(GRF correction,voxol p<0.005,cluster p <0.05),while the latter's global brain function connection after ECT showed a significant increase in the left frontal gyrus and the right inferior island inferior gyrus(GRF correction,voxol p < 0.005,cluster p < 0.05).Conclusions After ECT treatment,symptom scale evaluation of elderly patients with depression showed that the effect was significant.ALFF values in some brain areas were significantly increased after treatment,but not decreased,indicating that the energy metabolism of the brain might be increased after treatment.Moreover,the significantly enhanced functional connections between different brain regions and multiple other brain regions of the whole brain indicate that ECT treatment may improve the internal connections of various functional brain regions.The above may be related to the therapeutic mechanism of ECT in the treatment of senile depression.