Image via WikipediaA new device may take the guesswork out of prescribing an antidepressant that works, by Allison Bond
"[M]ore than two thirds of patients with depression have no luck with the first medication they are prescribed and must also endure the withdrawal effects that come with discontinuing a drug before trying a new one. . . . A new technology, however, may bypass this ordeal by gauging very early in a treatment regimen how well a drug is working based on the patient’s brain waves.
The technology, called quantitative electro enceph alography (QEEG), measures a person’s brain-wave pattern with EEG and then compares it with a database of normal samples to detect abnormal function. In a study published in the September 2009 issue of the journal Psychiatry Research, scientists used QEEG to record brain activity in subjects with major depressive disorder before they began treatment, after one week on an antidepressant and after eight weeks on the drug—the period it takes such drugs to achieve full effect. Changes in the QEEG readout after just one week of medication predicted 74 percent of the time whether patients would experience either a recovery or a remission of symptoms by the end of eight weeks."
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