Measuring Brainwaves While Sleeping can Tell If You Should Switch Antidepressants: Study

Measuring brainwaves produced during REM sleep helps predict whether a patient will respond to depression treatment, said scientists. As study leader Dr Thorsten Mikoteit said, "In real terms it means that patients, often in the depths of despair, might not need to wait weeks to see if their therapy is working before modifying their treatment". This work is presented at the ECNP Congress.

Depression/Major Depressive Disorder

• Around 7% of adults suffer from depression/Major Depressive Disorder (MDD).
• 27 million European and 17 million Americans suffer from MDD every year.
• Use of antidepressants, normally Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitors (SSRI's), such as Prozac and Fluoxetine, is the standard treatment for depression.
• Around 50% of sufferers don't respond to initial antidepressant treatment, which means physicians have to change the treatment strategy after four weeks of ineffective treatment.
• Being able to predict the response as early would be a huge benefit to depressed patients.

Study Details

• A randomized controlled trial on 37 patients with Major Depression was led by Dr. Thorsten Mikoteit, of the University of Basel.
• The participants were treated with antidepressants, 15 categorized as a control group. The other 22 participants' details were given to the psychiatrist in charge of treatment. The brainwaves during REM* sleep were monitored.
• The study's overall aim was to see a 50% reduction in depression symptoms, measured by the standard Hamilton Depression Rating Scale.
• After one week of the start of the treatment, physicians tested the study participants to see if the brainwaves indicated that the antidepressant treatment was likely to work.
• Unsuccessful patients were switched to a different treatment. After 5 weeks, 87.5% of these patients had an improved response, as opposed to just 20% in the control group.

Thorsten Mikoteit said: "This is a pilot study, but nevertheless it shows fairly significant improvements. We have been able to show that by predicting the non-response to antidepressants we were able to adapt the treatment strategy more or less immediately: this enables us to significantly shorten the average duration between start of antidepressant treatment and response, which is vital especially for seriously depressed patients. What it does mean is that we may be able to treat the most at-risk patients, for example those at risk of suicide, much quicker than we can currently do. If this is confirmed to be effective, it will save lives."

Source-Medindia