The American Journal of Psychiatry

The Editors offer their personal selections of the articles this year they found particularly interesting and important. Also available in Spanish.

ECT is often effective for severely depressed patients who have not responded to multiple medication trials or who are at imminent risk of suicide or other acute clinical condition. This issue's Treatment in Psychiatry highlights the safety and efficacy of ECT while stressing the importance of the pre-ECT medical evaluation and consent process.

Patients with major depression who have an insufficient response to selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) may benefit from the addition of 15 mg/day of l-methylfolate, the only form of folate that crosses the blood-brain barrier. Adding 7.5 mg/day was no more effective than adding placebo, but 15.0 mg/day plus ongoing SSRI treatment produced a 32% response rate, compared to 15% for augmentation with placebo. Side effects in the two groups were comparable in type and frequency.