Studies of Brain Damage From ECT

Animal and human autopsy studies show that shock routinely causes widespread pinpoint hemorrhages and scattered cell death. While the damage can be found throughout the brain, it is often worst beneath the electrodes. Since at least one electrode always lies over the frontal lobe, it is no exaggeration to call electroshock an electrical lobotomy. 

In 1976, Friedberg published the first review of brain damage from ECT. This was followed by my own detailed critiques (Breggin, 1979, 1981a, 1986). None of these studies and none of the reviews on brain damage were mentioned in the 1990 APA task force report. 

The original animal studies are from the 1940s and 1950s, but they are still valid. Several of them were elegant by any scientific standard. 

The model for these studies was conducted by Hans Hartelius on cats and published in 1952 in a book-length publication titled Cerebral Changes Following Electrically Induced Convulsions.  

In the double-blind microscopic pathology examination, Hartelius (1952) was able to discriminate between the eight shocked animals and the eight nonshocked animals with remarkable accuracy. The experimental animals showed vessel wall changes, gliosis, and nerve cell changes  

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