Studies which examine long-term consequences of electroconvulsive therapy are few and far between. But when they come out, they show very real consequences of repetitive electrical injury. 

For example, this new open-access study "Long-term effects of electroconvulsive therapy on brain structure in major depression" shows how ECT initially causes swelling which later becomes "gray matter volume" loss. The more the swelling, the greater the loss. Every ECT recepient had a smaller brain two years after ECT than before ECT.

Losing gray matter volume is known as cerebral atrophy--for reasons only known to the study authors, they don't call this decrease in brain matter volume "atrophy," though neurologists would. Perhaps this is due to the hyper focus on psychiatric symptoms. 

Another sad discovery of this article is that roughly 50% of the people who had ECT did not have symptom improvement, and they went on to have worsening of depressive symptoms--a common consequence of repetitive traumatic brain injury. 

Humans deserve better care. Please sign this petition to help those living with cerebral atrophy from ECT access appropriate comprehensive assessments and rehabilitation as indicated.