EEG database offers possible prescription insight

Newsweek recently ran an interesting piece on research into how a database of EEGs (recordings of brain wave activity) could be used in a novel fashion to try to determine the right drugs to prescribe for certain mental illnesses. Check this out:

[A]ccording to studies of hundreds of patients—CNS Response is launching larger trials this fall—"in some three quarters of patients the EEG database leads the physician to something he wouldn't have thought of," says CNS president Len Brandt. One middle-aged woman, for instance, suffered from depression for years, even after Richardson prescribed one antidepressant after another, marching through Wellbutrin, Cymbalta, Zoloft and more. Her EEG, it turned out, matched those of patients who had responded to Depakote, which is used for bipolar disorder and impulse-control disorders. She showed no signs of either. Yet on the drug and continued psychotherapy, her depression lifted in a week.

The EEG matches aren't perfect. For about one quarter of patients, the $500 analysis suggests treatments that work no better than what they'd already tried. It has proved most beneficial in stubborn cases and in those with no obvious first-line drug, such as eating disorders and addictions. A 16-year-old was repeatedly hospitalized for bulimia, purging up to 10 times a day despite being on the usual antidepressants, for instance. But her EEG pointed Greenblatt toward an anticonvulsant and a stimulant—not a duo anyone would have prescribed. She overcame her bulimia and is now in college.

That is pretty snazzy if it scales out. And of course, it's nice to daydream about how someday, the EEG database may be pointing people toward prescription MDMA....