ECT is evidence-based – a commentary on depression: why drugs and electricity are not the answer

Additionally, it is unclear how, in stating ‘A similar line of argument was resurrected, 70 years later, by researchers who reported that ECT reduces the ‘functional connectivity’ of the brain’, the authors can imply change in Blood-Oxygen-Level-Dependent (BOLD) signal is some kind of marker for ‘brain damage’. Furthermore, the authors selectively cite a systematic review of subjective memory in seven questionnaire-based studies (Rose et al., 2003), three of which failed to meet Rose et al.'s own inclusion criteria. [...]Read and Moncrieff provide an inaccurate and misleading account of the evidence for ECT. Methodological mishaps include: mis-citing of studies and arguments from before ECT was even invented; a lack of identifiable data-driven hypotheses - where their hypotheses have been tested they have been shown to be incorrect (e.g. expectation effects); ignoring relevant systematic reviews and meta-analyses that oppose their argument; repeated illogical backward inferencing of brain damage from both neuropsychological test performance and functional brain imaging; and simple factual errors that pervade their narrative.