CHANGES IN THE BRAIN AFTER ELECTRICALLY INDUCED CONVULSIONS IN CATS

Abstract

The widespread use of electrically produced convulsions for the treatment of mental disorders naturally gives rise to the question whether such artificially induced convulsive states are associated with evidence of damage to the brain. No observations on such changes in the human brain have as yet been published, to our knowledge. There has been an abundance of articles on the clinical, but none on the pathologic, features of induced convulsions. For this reason we have studied the brains of 30 cats in which artificial convulsions were produced by the electric current in order to determine, in animals at least, what change such convulsions cause in the nervous system. MATERIAL AND METHODS Thirty cats were given electrically induced convulsions (table). The first group, cats 1 to 6 inclusive, received a series of 23 shocks; these were given daily except Sundays. The second group, cats 7 to 15 inclusive, were given a