Sarah Biedermann1, Sascha Sartorius1, Lei Zheng1,2, Barbara Vollmayr3, Peter Gass3, Gabriele Ende4, Wolfgang Weber-Fahr1
1RG Translational Imaging, Central Institute of Mental Health, Mannheim, Germany; 2Medical Faculty of Mannheim, University of Heidelberg, Mannheim, Germany; 3RG Research Group Behavioral Biology, Central Institute of Mental Health, Mannheim, Germany; 4Department Neuroimaging, Central Institute of Mental Health, Mannheim, Germany
Psychiatric patients suffer from the time-delayed onset of antidepressive treatments. Electroconvulsive treatment (ECT) has a more rapid acting onset of the antidepressive effect. With the help of high field 1H magnetic resonance spectroscopy at 9.4 T we examined congenital learned helpless (cLH) rats hippocampi after a six days course of ECS. We found a significant increase in choline, glutamate and GABA concentrations after ECS. The increase of glutamate correlated significantly with an increase of GABA. Glutamine was unaltered by ECS. These results support the hypothesis of ECS induced neurogenesis and increased synaptic plasticity.