Just curious. Is it plausible that really good tasering could lift someone out of their depression?
ECT is given directly to the head and is done rather precisely these days to minimize unwelcome side-effects like extreme memory loss. The tasering would probably need to be done to the skull to work much at all. I have never heard of body shocks doing much for depression. I am not sure how the power output or profile compares between the two but I would guess it would be less than ideal at best.
If I’m not mistaken, the electricity in and of itself does nothing: it’s the shock-induced seizure that seems to have a beneficial effect. In the really bad old days, they’d use insulin to induce seizures :eek:
I just read in Nature about a treatment using a hallucigenetic drug, to treat depression. Sounds like it might be a lot more fun than a taser jolt and may actually have some theraputic value. I think the name of the drug is Ketamine (Special-K on the street). I would love to give you more details about the article but the guy I borrow my copy of Nature from, actually likes me to give them back so I don’t have it for a reference.
Yep, it’s the seizure that does it; that’s why they call it “ECT” now, for “electroconvulsive therapy.”
When it started, back in the 1930’s (can’t remember specifically when; my copy of Great and Desperate Cures is upstairs and I’m too busy with a online test to go find it … I should NOT be wasting time posting this, but I’m stupid that way), they were initially inspired to try ECT by observing that epileptics suffering from depression would often feel significantly better for some time after a seizure. They initially tried using electricity and metrazole (a drug that induces seizures) but they stopped using metrazole after it was discovered that the seizures produced by electroshock where less likely to result in broken bones, sprains, dislocations, and other moderate-to-severe injuries.
Insulin wasn’t actually used to induce a seizure, I don’t think – I believe it was used to put people into a coma. Lobotomy, insulin coma therapy, metrazole therapy, and electroconvulsive therapy were all popular back in the mid-20th century, but now that we have a wide variety of psychiatric drugs, they’re pretty much gone. Only ECT is still used, and then it’s only used in extremely drug-resistant cases of depression.
So I really doubt that a Taser could give you a therapeutic electric shock; I think the ECT electrodes have to be carefully set to deliver a shock that triggers a seizure. I’m not positive, though; I’ll let somebody who knows more about the kind of electrical jolt that a Taser produces speak to that. Maybe if the Taser electrodes got stuck to the sides of your head in just the right way…
(Apologies for any typos; major keyboard malfunctions on this laptop…)
Actually it’s the brain damage caused by the procedure which causes the temporary lifting of depression (it comes back, the lost memories and the remainder of your capacity to feel emotions don’t, necessarily).
I doubt that a taser would do any good, but it would be safer for you than ECT.
I was going to say, but forgot to, that we should wait for AHunter to comment, because he’s got personal experience in this arena, IIRC.
Which brings up another question: do regular epileptic seizures (and metrazole seizures) cause brain damage too? Is that how they lift depression?
I don’t have personal experience with ECT. Or if I do, the experience has erased my memory of it 
Here’s my understanding:
a) The psychiatric profession does not purport to know “how electroshock works”, aside from the obvious fact that it incudes a grand mal seizure. Grand mal seizures can cause permanent brain damage but don’t tend to; on the other hand, most of them are not provoked by deliberately running an electrical arc right through your freaking brain.
b) MRIs and post-mortem examinations overwhelmingly support the thesis that electroconvulsive therapy damages brain tissue. This is discussed at great and gory length in Dr. Peter Breggin’s book on the subject. I’m not claiming he’s unbiased (he’s as opposed to psychiatric practice in general as I am) but his research is footnoted and documented in detail.
c) ECT, when given, is given in a series. You don’t get wheeled in and zapped once. You get 15, 25, 40 of them, one a day or one every couple of days, etc.
d) There is hardly any controversy over whether or not ECT causes memory loss; controversy lies with the question of what proportion of people suffering memory loss get their memories back later. I can’t point you to any quantitative studies on that, unfortunately. But there are quite a few very pissed-off people in the movement who received ECT for depression and lost enough of their memories to make them unable to function in the profession for which they were trained. Some have a complete blank for memory of their adult children’s childhood, or of the history of their relationship with their spouse prior to the shock.
e) Various forms of “minimal brain damage” (MBD) produce a condition that’s been described as “euphoria” — an overly-rosy term for it, but definitely a cheerful emotional condition. The strongest indictment of ECT among the critical allegations is the claim that the mechanism by which ECT lifts depression is MBD, as opposed to “there is some risk of neural tissue damage as a side effect of ECT”, etc. If it’s “how it works”, it’s not a side effect, it’s what it does. This allegation is not proven, but neither (as I said) do ECT’s proponents have a convincing explanation for what it might be doing instead.
f) There is a very high rate of recurrence of depression in months to a couple years post-ECT. This would seem to support the notion that all ECT does is induce a little MBD.
g) Even the proponents of ECT have alleged that part of its efficacy is due to “erasing the memories” including both specific memories of some depressing events and also general memories of being stuck in a depressive rut of thought and feeling. The critics claim the memory loss is also a symptom of MDB.
h) Subjectively, the response to ECT is all over the map, with many recipients saying it was the worst thing they’ve ever gone through and many others saying thanks to ECT they are alive and able to get on with their lives.
i) The method of inducing the seizures has changed over the years. In the early days, bones could be broken from the violence of the induced grand mal seizure. To stop this, patients are medicated with a curare derivative which paralyzes the muscles, and I mean no-kidding paralyzes them, to the point that patients cannot breathe on their own but must be artificially respirated during the procedure with what’s called an Ambu bag. Another change is that the most common placement of the electrodes has changed to a “unilateral” arrangement on the nondominant side, which is supposed to be safer but which is “less effective” meaning that they may give more of them in search of the same results; and the length of the pulse has been shortened, while the voltage has been upped to compensate for the shorter duration. The proponents claim this also makes it ‘safer’ but critics say the opposite.
j) It is still given involuntarily in the US at times, over the vehement objections of the recipient, over and over again (they do them in a series, remember), including loquacious and highly intelligible people who seem to know very clearly what they want and don’t want.
Kitty Dukakis had an essay in Newsweek a month or two ago, talking about how much ECT had helped her with chronic depression. No mention of tasering, alas, but I doubt it would be comparable. Apples and oranges.
ECT’s run at about 120 jolts per second, while tasers employ ~20 jolts per second.
Charge per jolt is higher for tasers, but the higher frequency of ect machines means that they put out more energy per second.