ABSTRACT
BACKGROUND Electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) is the oldest surviving biological treatment in modern psychiatry. It is now more than 70 years old and its efficacy in treating severe mental illness remains unsurpassed. Convulsive therapy was initially introduced in 1934 in Hungary by Ladislaus von Meduna as a treatment for schizophrenia. It was thought at the time that epilepsy and schizophrenia were “antagonistic” illnesses (1). This concept was based on the interpretation of neuropathological studies showing a robust growth of glial cells in brains of epileptic patients and lack of glial growth in brains of schizophrenic patients, as well as the observation that epileptic patients diagnosed with schizophrenia had better overall prognosis (2).
