# Electroconvulsive therapy improves somatic symptoms before mood in patients with depression: a directed network approach

## TL;DR

This study explores how electroconvulsive therapy affects symptoms of depression over time, finding that physical symptoms improve before mood symptoms.

## Contribution

The study introduces a novel network approach to track how specific symptoms change over the course of ECT treatment.

## Key findings

- Somatic symptoms improve before mood symptoms during ECT treatment.
- The network approach reveals temporal patterns in symptom improvement.
- ECT affects individual symptoms differently over time.

## Abstract

The recent network perspective of depression conceptualizes depression as a dynamic network of causally related symptoms, this in contrast with the traditional view of depression as a discrete latent entity that causes all symptoms. Electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) is an effective treatment for severe depression, but little is known about the temporal trajectories of symptom improvement during a course of ECT. We will present the results of a study that investigates the temporal trajectories of individual symptoms during treatment with ECT.

None Declared