ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Psychiatry
Sec. Mood Disorders
Volume 16 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fpsyt.2025.1699102
Brain reserve in memory regions is associated with the preservation of autobiographical memories after electroconvulsive therapy
Provisionally accepted
André Beyer Mathiassen1,2*
Christoffer Cramer Lundsgaard1,2Krzysztof Gbyl1,2
Kamilla Miskowiak1,2Birgitte Fagerlund1,2Henrik B Wiberg Larsson1
Ulrich Lindberg1Poul Videbech1,2- 1Kobenhavns Universitetshospital, Copenhagen, Denmark
- 2Kobenhavns Universitet, Copenhagen, Denmark
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Abstract Background: Electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) may cause anterograde and autobiographical amnesia. Identifying reliable predictive biomarkers for the risk of this memory loss may assist clinicians in their decision to use this treatment. We aimed to investigate if the baseline volume or cortical thickness of predetermined regions of interest (ROIs) involved in memory recall are correlated with the degree of amnesia after ECT. Method: In this longitudinal study, we followed 19 inpatients receiving ECT for depression. By use of 3 Tesla MRI, we performed structural brain scans prior to ECT. We also assessed autobiographical, verbal, and visual anterograde memory both before and after ECT. We conducted one-sided partial correlation analyses between volume or cortical thickness of the ROIs at baseline and memory decline following ECT. ClinicalTrials.gov: NCT04160286. Results: As hypothesized, larger baseline cortical thickness of the right parahippocampal gyrus (r = .517, p = .014) and the left ventrolateral prefrontal cortex (r = .530, p = .012) correlated with less ECT-related decline in autobiographical memory, respectively explaining 26.7% and 28.1% of the variance. Unexpectedly, a smaller volume of the right hippocampus also correlated with less autobiographical memory decline (r = - .416, p = .048). No ROIs predicted anterograde memory impairment. Conclusion: These early findings suggest that a pre-ECT neural reserve in brain regions subserving memory might act protectively against the development of autobiographical memory loss after ECT. If replicated in larger samples, our findings may have promising clinical implications, as a structural MRI scan prior to ECT might contribute to determining the individual risk of autobiographical memory loss following ECT.
Keywords: Electroconvulsive Therapy, Amnesia, prediction, brain reserve, hippocampal volume, cortical thickness
Received: 04 Sep 2025; Accepted: 22 Oct 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Mathiassen, Lundsgaard, Gbyl, Miskowiak, Fagerlund, Larsson, Lindberg and Videbech. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: André Beyer Mathiassen, andre.mathiassen@regionh.dk
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