We present 2 cases of patients who received electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) for psychotic depression and catatonia, respectively. Both patients had previously been diagnosed with COVID-related anosmia. Following the first ECT session, the patients reported a significant improvement in their sense of smell, preceding the resolution of depressive and catatonic symptoms. There is a growing body of literature regarding the relationship between psychiatric illness and olfactory dysfunction. Furthermore, considering the neurogenesis hypothesis of ECT, the olfactory bulb is the only brain structure aside from the dentate gyrus where neurogenesis is known to occur.
Gistelinck et al. (2026) studied this question.