Serum brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) is not associated with response to electroconvulsive therapy (ECT): A pilot study in drug resistant depressed patients

Content Provider	Semantic Scholar
Author	Fernandes, Brisa Gama, Clarissa Severino Massuda, Rafael Torres, Mariana A. Lobato, Maria Inês Rodrigues
Copyright Year	2009
Abstract	Refractory depression is a highly debilitating mental condition that originates major social and economic burden. About 50% of the patients experience a chronic course of illness and up to 20% show an insufficient response to drug treatments. Electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) is the most effective treatment method in refractory depression, although its mechanism of action is still unknown. Brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) is decreased in depressive episodes, and increases with antidepressant treatment, being suggested as a biomarker of response to ECT. We report the findings of a study on the effects of ECT on BDNF and clinical outcomes in a group of drug resistant depressive patients before and after ECT. The patients post-ECTs have shown an important improvement of depressive symptomatology on the HDRS (p=0.001), of psychotic features on the BPRS (p=0.001) and of the severity of illness on the CGI (p=0.001). There were no changes in the serum BDNF before and after the ECT treatment (p=0.89). These results do not support the hypothesis that the clinical improvement following ECT is due to changes in the BDNF.
Starting Page	195
Ending Page	198
Page Count	4
File Format	PDF HTM / HTML
DOI	10.1016/j.neulet.2009.02.032
PubMed reference number	19429034
Journal	Medline
Volume Number	453
Alternate Webpage(s)	https://api.elsevier.com/content/article/pii/S0304394009002080
Alternate Webpage(s)	https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0304394009002080?dgcid=api_sd_search-api-endpoint
Alternate Webpage(s)	https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neulet.2009.02.032
Journal	Neuroscience Letters
Language	English
Access Restriction	Open
Content Type	Text
Resource Type	Article