A Comparison of the Effects on Depression and Memory of Bilateral E.C.T. and Unilateral E.C.T. to the Dominant and Non-Dominant Hemispheres

Abstract

Four years after E.C.T. was first introduced by Cerletti and Bini (1938), Friedman and Wilcox (1942) investigated the effect of unilateral E.C.T. in eleven psychotic patients, using a pair of electrodes on the vertex and on the left temple above the ear (or, in one case, the left frontal region). Since that time there have been a number of published reports of the effect of administering E.C.T. unilaterally, using a variety of electrode placements and shock parameters, some limited to the supposedly non-dominant right side of the head (Goldman, 1949; Lancaster, Steinert and Frost, 1958; Cannicott, 1962; Bilikiewicz and Krzyzowski, 1964; Dolenz, 1964; Martin, Ford, McDanald and Towler, 1965; Impastato and Karliner, 1966; Cannicott and Waggoner, 1967), others comparing right- and left-sided treatment (Blaurock, Lorimer, Segal and Gibbs, 1950; Pacella and Impastato, 1954; Zamora and Kaelbling, 1965; Gottlieb and Wilson, 1965).