Summary
This invention is a method that uses human EEG output to determine, early in the course of antidepressant treatment, whether an individual has an elevated risk of developing adverse medication effects. In the clinical setting, this method will provide a neurophysiologic marker, early during antidepressant treatment, that will help determine one's risk of experiencing anxiety, agitation, hostility, and/or increases in suicidal ideation with continuation of that medication.
Innovation
The invention utilizes output from quantitative electroencephalographic (QEEG) recordings for an individual that are obtained at two time-points: baseline (T1; prior to the start of drug) and (T2; early in the course of antidepressant treatment). From these recordings, a single measure is generated that can be used to determine the chance or percent likelihood that the individual will experience medication-related increases in anxiety, agitation, hostility, and/or suicidal ideation during continuation of the specific antidepressant over the subsequent two months.
State Of Development
In data from depressed patients randomized to antidepressant treatment, our QEEG biomarker predicted worsening suicidal ideation with 97% accuracy (80% sensitivity, 100% specificity) and .86 Area under the Receiver Operating Curve. (These results need to be prospectively replicated in independent samples.) The biomarker did not predict suicidal worsening among depressed subjects treated with placebo.