Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-gbm5v Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-28T07:27:02.029Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

The Effect of Electro-Convulsive Therapy on the Psycho-Galvanic Response

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  08 February 2018

M. Bassett
Affiliation:
Department of Research, Barnwood House, Gloucester
W. Ross Ashby
Affiliation:
Department of Research, Barnwood House, Gloucester

Extract

Though electro-convulsive therapy (E.C.T.) is one of our most useful treatments, its mode of action is still largely unknown, and this ignorance is preventing us from making it more successful and more widely applicable. Among its possible modes of action is the possibility of its having some “activating” action on the basal, and more particularly on the hypothalamic, structures. Such activation might be expected to show in the psycho-galvanic response (P.G.R.), and we have therefore investigated something of the relationship between them. Many of the facts that would justify this investigation need not be given here as they have been reviewed in previous publications (Ashby and Bassett, 1950; Ashby, 1952(b)).

Type
Original Articles
Copyright
Copyright © Royal College of Psychiatrists, 1954 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Ashby, , Ross, W., Design for a Brain, 1952(a). London.Google Scholar
Idem, J. Ment. Sci., 1952(b), 99, 202.Google Scholar
Idem and Bassett, M., ibid., 1950, 96, 458.Google Scholar
Darrow, C. W., Arch. Neurol. Psychiat., 1937, 37, 641.Google Scholar
Fisher, R. A., and Yates, F., Statistical Tables, 1938. Edinburgh.Google Scholar
Funkenstein, D. H., Greenblatt, M., and Solomon, H. C., Am. J. Psychiat., 1950, 106, 901.Google Scholar
Haggard, E. A., and Garner, W. R., J. Exp. Psychol., 1946, 36, 59.Google Scholar
Haggard, E. A., J. Exp. Psychol, 1949, 39, 378.Google Scholar
Hunt, W. A., and Hunt, E. B., J. Exp. Psychol., 1935, 18, 383.Google Scholar
Roth, M., J. Ment. Sci., 1952, 98, 44.Google Scholar
Solomon, A. P., Darrow, C. W., and Blaurock, M., Psychosom. Med., 1939, 1, 118.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Submit a response

eLetters

No eLetters have been published for this article.