Reconsideration of the Benefits of Pharmacological Interventions for the Attenuation of the Cognitive Adverse Effects of Electroconvulsive Therapy

Abstract

The cognitive adverse effects (AEs) of electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) limit the wider use of the treatment. These AEs can be attenuated by changing the way ECT is administered; however, such changes may reduce the response rate, the speed of response, or both. A recent systematic review and meta-analysis identified more than a dozen pharmacologic interventions in 26 randomized controlled trials (RCTs) that sought to reduce ECT-induced cognitive AEs. Because of large differences across RCTs, only a few outcomes for a few interventions could be pooled in meta-analysis, and most pooled analyses included only 2–3 RCTs. Important findings were that acetylcholinesterase inhibitors, ketamine, memantine, and liothyronine were associated with improved global cognitive functioning at 1–14 days post-ECT. Anti-inflammatory treatments and opioid receptor antagonists were not associated with improvement in general cognitive outcome at 1–14 days post-ECT. Meta-analysis was not possible for the remaining interventions, including piracetam, melatonin, pemoline, nortriptyline, herbal agents, drugs acting on the cortisol pathway, opioid receptor antagonists, l-tryptophan, vasopressin analogs, calcium channel blockers, and others; in individual RCTs, some of these interventions attenuated some cognitive measures as some time points after ECT. Regrettably, none of the RCTs examined clinically meaningful outcomes such as subjective cognitive impairment, impairments in daily life, and persistent autobiographical memory deficits. Future research should study such clinically meaningful outcomes (rather than laboratory tests), using pharmacologic interventions, perhaps in combination, for ECT procedures that are associated with higher cognitive AE burden. A risk is that whatever attenuates ECT-induced cognitive AEs may also attenuate ECT-related therapeutic benefits.