Abstract

Many factors can obscure determination of the total hormone release induced by a course of electroconvulsive therapy (ECT). Not the least of these factors are the rates of hormone release and their elimination. A method of estimating the total amount of prolactin released during an ECT-induced seizure has been constructed by mathematical modeling. Using prolactin levels measured from patients undergoing ECT, this simulation indicates that the optimal times for sampling plasma prolactin are 5, 10, 20, and 45 min following the seizure, besides the baseline measurement.

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