Gbyl K, Rostrup E, Raghava JM, et al. - Researchers examined how electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) influences cortical thickness and how it is relate to clinical outcomes. At three-time points, T1-weighted brain images of 18 severely depressed patients were obtained using 3 Tesla MRI scanner (before, right after, and 6 months after a series of ECT). The thickness of 68 cortical regions was extracted using Free Surfer, and longitudinal changes were analyzed with Linear Mixed Model. The analysis revealed that cortical thickness of 26 regions significantly increased immediately after a series of ECT, mostly within the frontal, temporal and insular cortex, which reverted to baseline values at 6-month follow-up. Cortical thickness showed no significant decreases. They observed a greater antidepressant effect in correlation with the increase in the thickness of the right lateral orbitofrontal cortex. No association of any of the cortical regions with cognitive side effects was evident.