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Background & Objectives: Since the students majoring in different Fields of medicine are going to play key roles regarding Community health in the future, it seams necessary to characterize problems threatening their mental health. This study was performed in order to evaluate students’ mental health status in Ardabil University of Medical Sciences
Methods: In this descriptive-analytical study, 352 students were selected through census and were requested to fill out general health questionnaire (GHQ) with 28 questions as well as personal information questionnaire. The data were analyzed using descriptive statistics and chi- square.
Results: The findings indicate that students have problems in physical (1.7%), and social function (4.3%), anxiety and insomnia (2.3%) of them suffer from severe depression (2%). Also according to cut point (23) 22.7% students were suspected of mental disorders. In this research, there was no significant difference in mental disorders between male and female students, but there was a meaningful relationship between status with paternal educational degree and family size and mother's job (p< 0.05).
Conclusion: according to the findings, student's psychological evaluation and counseling service in different fields to promote student mental health, is recommended

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Background & objectives: Depression is a common and debilitating brain disorder and a type of psychiatric syndromes. The most common symptoms of this disease are irritability, worthlessness, sleep problems and anxiety disorders. Reserpine is a drug that can cause depression in animals if used at a very low dose. Electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) is one of the most effective non-pharmacological treatments for depression. In this study, the effect of electroconvulsive therapy on male rats depressed by reserpine in behavioral tests and neural counting in the hippocampus and prefrontal cortex areas was investigated.
Methods: In this experimental study, 40 male rats were used and they were divided into four groups of ten: 1-control group, 2- ECT group, 3- Depressed group induced by reserpine (0.2 mg/kg i.p.), 4- Depressed + ECT group. Open field, sucrose preference, forced swimming and elevated plus maze tests were used to evaluate anxiety and depression-related behavioral function. At the end of the tests, histochemical studies were performed with neuronal counting in the hippocampus and prefrontal cortex.
Results: The results of anxiety and depression behavioral tests showed a significant difference between depressed group and depressed+ECT group (p<0.05). Similarly, studies of the tissue degeneration from hippocampal and prefrontal incisions, showed that ECT could significantly decrease cell death in the depressed+ECT group compared to the depressed group (p<0.05).
Conclusion: According to the results, ECT can reduce the anxiety and depression behaviors induced by reserpine injections in depressed animals and can cause neurogenesis in the hippocampus and prefrontal cortex.