Abstract
Recent positron emission tomography studies have revealed glial activation in endogenous psychiatric disorders, such as schizophrenia and major depression, suggesting that the involvement of glial cells in the pathophysiology of these disorders. In fact, the decreased coverage of brain blood vessels by astrocytic endfeet has been identified in postmortem brains of major depression patients. Although electroconvulsive treatment (ECT) is regarded as an efficient treatment for refractory schizophrenia and major depression, its therapeutic mechanism is still unknown.
The author’s group has already shown that antidepressants as well as antipsychotics inhibit microglial activation in vitro. Using pathognomonic rats called Gunn rats, which show congenital activation of microglia and astrocytes and exert both depressive‐like and schizophrenia‐like behavior, we have recently demonstrated that ECT attenuates activated astrocytic in addition to activated microglia with amelioration of their abnormal behavior. In addition, ECT has been demonstrated to significantly restore the decreased coverage of blood vessels by astrocytic endfeet in the hippocampus and prefrontal cortex of Gunn rats. These findings suggest that the therapeutic effects of ECT is exerted through the inhibition of activated microglia and astrocytes, and the restoration of impaired gliovascular units. Accordingly, glia can be considered as new promising targets for therapeutic actions of electroconvulsive treatment.
