Lostar-T

|| MORGAINE FOR MARR

There’s nothing like a little Friday afternoon catnap. 🦁 💤

“This is no place for mortals.” – Sotha Sil

“This is no place for mortals.” – Sotha Sil

We love this art of the Psijic Order’s Valsirenn in her element. Doesn’t she look happy?

Countless times in the Pokémon anime we’ve witnessed a Pokémon delivery an electric-type attack to a human.  Most often this has been Pikachu doing this to Ash and it’s never been for Ash’s benefit.  However, in the real world there are occasions when electricity is applied to human beings for their benefit.  Specifically, the use of electroconvulsive therapy to treat depression.

Electroconvulsive therapy, formerly known as electroshock therapy and often abbreviated as ECT, is often thought of as an old, barbaric approach to mental illness.  ECT was first used to treat psychological disorders in the 1930s.  The initial use of ECT involved, and still does, the application of electricity to a patient’s scalp to induce seizures.  However, early use was complicated by significant side effects including fracturing of bones from the strength of the convulsions caused by the seizures and cognitive impairment due to lack of sophistication in its use and higher amounts of electricity used (Lisanby, 2007).  It was often used to treat both depression and schizophrenia (Sweet, 1952).

In the present day, electroconvulsive therapy is most often used to treat major depressive disorders that have not responded to conventional therapies, such as medication management and/or psychotherapy.  However, in particularly severe depression that may involve refusal of food or drink, high suicide risk, psychotic symptoms, and/or near-vegetative states its use may be indicated much sooner in treatment (Baghai & Möller, 2008). It is also now performed under general anesthesia and is generally administered multiple times for optimal treatment effect.  ECT appears to operate on a number of brain-related functions, such as increasing GABA, which can reduce anxiety; serotonin activity, which can increase feelings of happiness; and a number of other changes in brain activity.  As a result, ECT appears to have immediate reduction in depressive symptoms, with some studies indicating a 75% remission rate in depressive symptoms.  ECT appears to be particularly successful in treating severe depression with psychotic features, as well as within geriatric populations.  However, in order for continued success, ECT must be followed up with more conventional therapies as maintenance (Lisanby, 2007).

As hugging a Pikachu is not without risk, so too is electroconvulsive therapy.  Estimates of persistent memory loss following ECT range between 29% and 55%, with up to 79% of individuals reporting some degree of memory loss (Rose, Fleischmann, Wykes, Leese, & Bindman, 2003).  Short-term, people having been treated with ECT tend to report missing memories created shortly before their ECT, but also long-term memories.  This includes autobiographical memories, which are memories about one’s personal history.  However, the type of amnesia experienced most frequently and most persistently in people undergoing ECT appears to be knowledge about events in the world (Lisanby, Maddox, Prudic, Devanand, & Sackeim, 2000).  Additionally, due to public perception of ECT, there is a degree of stigma associated with it as a treatment and may cause individuals for whom this treatment would benefit to feel ill at ease with its use (Baghai & Möller, 2008).

While electroconvulsive therapy remains an effective, but complicated treatment for depression; it would seem that application by Pokémon is not the controlled treatment required for effectiveness.  However, Ash’s optimism and exuberance would suggest that he is not suffering from depression, either because of or despite repeated application of electrical current to his entire body.  

Works Cited:

Baghai, T. C., & Möller, H. J. (2008).  Electroconvulsive therapy and its different indications. Dialogues in clinical neuroscience, 10, 105.

Lisanby, S. H. (2007). Electroconvulsive therapy for depression.  New England Journal of Medicine, 357, 1939-1945.

Lisanby, S. H., Maddox, J. H., Prudic, J., Devanand, D. P., & Sackeim, H. A. (2000).  The effects of electroconvulsive therapy on memory of autobiographical and public events.  Archives of general psychiatry, 57, 581-590.

Rose, D., Fleischmann, P., Wykes, T., Leese, M., & Bindman, J. (2003).  Patients’ perspectives on electroconvulsive therapy: systematic review.  The British Medical Journal, 326, 1363-1368.