Postexercise motor evoked potentials in depressed patients, recovered depressed patients, and controls

We hypothesized that impaired postexercise motor evoked potential (MEP) fac ilitation in depressed patients would reverse with recovery from depression . Transcranial magnetic stimulation and exercise of the thenar muscles were used to examine the 10 controls, 10 medicated depressed patients, and 10 m edicated recovered patients. Depressed patients showed reduced mean postexe rcise facilitation compared to both controls (p = 0.005) and recovered pati ents (p = 0.012) Controls and recovered patients had similar mean postexerc ise MEPs (p = 0.45). This is consistent with other evidence of reversibilit y of abnormal findings following recovery from depression.