The theoretical bases of convulsive therapy in relation to animal experimentation.

This article presents the theoretical bases of convulsive therapy in relation to animal experimentation. Before turning to the experiments to be described on animal behavior, it is necessary to consider some of the alternative and often-conflicting theories advanced to account for the changes produced in patients as a result of convulsive therapy. Various workers have advanced two sets of theoretical constructs. One is generically labeled as psychogenic and has received most impulsion from the speculations of the psychoanalytic schools. The other, with which this paper will occupy itself, seeks an organic, biochemical, and physiological etiology. More recent theories have emphasized the role of metabolic processes in the causation of improvement and psychological change. Researcher F. Georgi finds that sugar metabolism, produced slowly in hypoglycemia and rapidly under electrical and metrazol therapy, is an evidence of an alteration in the membrane tissue of neural cellular matter. Researcher L. Von Angyal believes that the reduction of sugar content in the brain during hypoglycemia causes a compensatory increase in metabolism in malfunctioning cells, thereby producing changes in specific behavior patterns as well as general improvement in the patient.