The effect of electro-convulsive therapy on the psycho-galvanic response

Though electro-convulsive therapy (E.C.T.) is one of our most useful treatments, its mode of action is still largely unknown, and this ignorance is preventing us from making it more successful and more widely applicable. Among its possible modes of action is the possibility of its having some “activating” action on the basal, and more particularly on the hypothalamic, structures. Such activation might be expected to show in the psycho-galvanic response (P.G.R.), and we have therefore investigated something of the relationship between them. Many of the facts that would justify this investigation need not be given here as they have been reviewed in previous publications (Ashby and Bassett, 1950; Ashby, 1952(b)).