Randomized Controlled Trial
Copyright ©The Author(s) 2025. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Psychiatry. Sep 19, 2025; 15(9): 109458
Published online Sep 19, 2025. doi: 10.5498/wjp.v15.i9.109458
Effect of esketamine and etomidate anesthesia on neuroplasticity in electroconvulsive therapy for treatment-resistant depression
Guo-Guang Zhao, Jing Zhao, Yan Kong, Ya-Ping Pang, Xiao-Nan Zheng, Yi-Wei Zhang
Guo-Guang Zhao, Xiao-Nan Zheng, Yi-Wei Zhang, Department of Anesthesiology, The Second Affiliated Hospital of Shandong First Medical University, Tai’an 271000, Shandong Province, China
Jing Zhao, Department of Dermatology, The Second Affiliated Hospital of Shandong First Medical University, Tai’an 271000, Shandong Province, China
Yan Kong, Department of Psychiatry, The Second Affiliated Hospital of Shandong First Medical University, Tai’an 271000, Shandong Province, China
Ya-Ping Pang, Department of Medical Imaging, The Second Affiliated Hospital of Shandong University of Traditional Chinese Medicine, Jinan 250000, Shandong Province, China
Co-first authors: Guo-Guang Zhao and Jing Zhao.
Author contributions: Zhao GG and Zhao J was the guarantor and designed the study and they contribute equally to this study as co-first authors; Zhao GG, Kong Y, Pang YP, and Zheng XN participated in the acquisition, analysis, and interpretation of the data, and drafted the initial manuscript; Zhao GG and Zhang YW revised the article critically for important intellectual content.
Institutional review board statement: The study was reviewed and approved by The Second Affiliated Hospital of Shandong First Medical University.
Clinical trial registration statement: This study was not registered.
Informed consent statement: All study participants, or their legal guardian, provided informed written consent prior to study enrollment.
Conflict-of-interest statement: There are no conflicts of interest to report.
CONSORT 2010 statement: The authors have read the CONSORT 2010 Statement, and the manuscript was prepared and revised according to the CONSORT 2010 Statement.
Data sharing statement: No additional data are available
Open Access: This article is an open-access article that was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: https://creativecommons.org/Licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Corresponding author: Yi-Wei Zhang, Associate Chief Physician, Department of Anesthesiology, The Second Affiliated Hospital of Shandong First Medical University, No. 366 Mount Taishan Street, Tai’an 271000, Shandong Province, China. ywzhang@email.sdfmu.edu.cn
Received: May 28, 2025
Revised: June 27, 2025
Accepted: July 24, 2025
Published online: September 19, 2025
Processing time: 90 Days and 2.2 Hours
Core Tip

Core Tip: This study aims to evaluate the clinical efficacy of the combined application of esketamine and etomidate in electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) anesthesia for patients with refractory depression. The preliminary study shows that during ECT anesthesia for patients with refractory depression, esketamine-etomidate helps maintain the stability of vital signs during the treatment process, improves depressive symptoms, and enhances neurological and basic executive functions.